• March 29, 2004

ESPN will open its new 120,000 square foot Digital Center on June 7, the company announced on Monday. The facility, located on the network's Bristol, Conn. campus, will contain more than seven million feet of cable and three HDTV studios. It will be home to all of ESPN's Bristol-based studio programming.

"ESPN's conversion from analog to high-definition digital will be a significant milestone for the entire company," said senior vice president of technology, engineering and operations Chuck Pagano in a press release. "To become entirely digital, we must have the technical capability to ingest an enormous amount of content from a wide variety of sources and digitally prepare it for 720-line progressive HDTV. With this new facility, we will now be able to do so."

When construction on the Digital Center is complete in 2005, ESPN will air 3,500 hours of originally produced high-definition studio programming each year. The current high-definition telecast schedule includes Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and National Football League games as well as college football and basketball.