Top 30 SportsCenter Facts..."Did You Know?"

1. George Grande, the current television play-by-play commentator for the Cincinnati Reds, was the first SportsCenter anchor.
2. SportsCenter’s first live remote (on Sept. 7, 1979) featured University of Colorado coach Chuck Fairbanks.  Unfortunately, the live feed from Boulder, Colo., had video but no audio.
3. The first score reported on SportsCenter was Chris Evert Lloyd defeating Billie Jean King 6-1, 6-0.
4. SportsCenter’s first on-site report was from Super Bowl XVI in January 1982.  (San Francisco 49ers defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 26-21).
5. In 1989, SportsCenter won its first Sports Emmy Award for a feature on Montreal Expos’ pitcher Tim Burke, who had adopted a Guatemalan child.
6. On August 16, 2002, ESPN aired its 25,000th live edition of SportsCenter, more than any other program in television history.
7. ESPN has produced more than 300 “This is SportsCenter” promotional spots since the campaign began in 1995.  More than 40 mascots have been featured.
8. More than 25 games and events are screened daily to produce the highlights and feature packages that appear on SportsCenter and as many as 14 edit rooms are used daily to produce the content.
9. A typical one-hour SportsCenter program provides an average of 95 insert graphics and 14 animation elements -- that’s more than 1 ½ graphics a minute (the breakdown is 56 lower-third graphics, 21 full screen and 18 over-the-shoulder).
10. On Aug. 11, 2008, SportsCenter began airing live from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. ET Monday – Friday, replacing the “wheel” of re-aired editions of SportsCenter from the 1 a.m. ET edition. The move increased the number of live hours of SportsCenter from three to nine each weekday.
11. On April 6, 2009, ESPN officially opened its new five-story Los Angeles Production Center, launching locally-produced programming with the live edition of SportsCenter weekdaysat 10 p.m. PT/1 a.m. ET.
12. Coinciding with the launch of the Los Angeles Production Center, all editions of SportsCenter unveiled a new look on April 6, 2009 featuring updated animation packages and graphics.
13. SportsCenter is televised in nine different languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Hindi, Cantonese, Mandarin, Malay and Japanese) around the world.
14. There are 15 original versions of SportsCenterproduced around the world, including the U.S. version.
15. SportsCenter has earned15 Sports Emmy awards.
16. 25 shades of concealers and foundations are used by the makeup team that prepares the SportsCenter anchors for their domestic shows.
17. In all, more than 2,700 makeup removal wipes are used per month by SportsCenter anchors following their domestic shows.
18. The average number of production and news personnel who work on each SportsCenter telecast is 50 people.
19. The average SportsCenter highlight is 50 seconds in length.
20. There are 81 SportsCenter anchors worldwide.
21. SportsCenter is watched in 136 countries and territories worldwide.
22. SportsCenter production members and staff attend 220 meetings per month globally.
23. SportsCenter produces an average of 1,500 highlights per month (450 in the U.S., and more than 1,120 globally and on ESPN Deportes)
24. 6,057 original SportsCenter telecasts are produced worldwide each year.
25. SportsCenter updates are aired 26,280 times per year on ESPN Radio
26. In the third quarter of 2007, the familiar “Da Da Da…Da Da Da” SportsCenter theme song was downloaded as a ringtone 36,000 times.
27. 52, 638 original editions of SportsCenter will have been produced by ESPN’s 30th anniversary date on September 7, 2009 (includes U.S., ESPN Deportes and overseas editions).
28. SportsCenter Right Now updates on ESPN’s mobile content are viewed 100,000 times per month on average.
29. SportsCenter Right Now on ESPN.com and related sites is viewed 1.45 million times daily.
30. As many as 105.6 million people watch SportsCenter each month in the U.S.

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