The final edition of ESPN’s SportsCenter from the Los Angeles studios will be airing on Monday, May 19 featuring longtime anchors Linda Cohn and Stan Verrett. This will culminate a run of shows airing from the production facility that has presented episodes of the program since 2009.
SportsCenter anchor Stephen Nelson divulged the news in a post on X, also sharing that he had anchored his last version of the show from Los Angeles on Wednesday night.
In March, ESPN said in a statement to the Sports Business Journal, “Based on our current business needs, we are relocating the L.A.-based ‘SportsCenter’ and soccer studio shows to ESPN’s Bristol headquarters, including the limited number of employee positions related to these shows.”
While SportsCenter is moving back to its homebase in Connecticut, the Los Angeles Production Center located near Crypto.com Arena, the home of the Los Angeles Lakers, will remain open and continue to host ESPN’s NBA studio productions and provide office space to additional L.A.-based employees. As previously reported, the SportsCenter move away from LA to Bristol will affect 35 of the 229 employees based at the production center including Nelson
NBA studio programming includes NBA Today and NBA Countdown.
The Los Angeles facility first opened 16 years ago and was the location where the SportsCenter starring Stan Verrett and Neil Everett aired for many years. While Everett was let go by the network in 2023, Verrett continued to host the show from the locale. The status of Linda Cohn, who is the longest-tenured SportsCenter anchor at the company, also remains unknown.
An announcement about their futures has not been made at this time.
As previously reported by Dylan Byers of Puck, ESPN was planning to close its Los Angeles and South Street Seaport studios no later than this year. Details of any further moves at either location have not been announced, the latter of which houses studio shows such as Get Up, and First Take.
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