The E. W. Scripps Company is overhauling its live sports presentation with a brand-new studio set for that will debut in mid-August, The Desk has learned.
The new Scripps Sports broadcast studio and set will debut on Friday, August 16 around 7 p.m. Eastern Time, scheduled to coincide with a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) game on Scripps-owned Ion.
The set will feature state-of-the-art technology, including several ultra high-definition (UHD/4K) graphics monitors, an 86-inch Telestrator for live analysis, four unique production positions and a wall of four vertical monitors to highlight teams, players or match-ups throughout the broadcast.
The new facility will allow Scripps Sports to centralize its production of pre-game, halftime and post-game coverage for its WNBA games as well as National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) match-ups. Previously, Scripps Sports shared production space with multicast network Scripps News.
“Scripps Sports is proud to offer national studio shows on Ion for both the WNBA and NWSL which reflect a significant investment and enhance our already extraordinary storytelling capabilities,” Brian Lawler, the President of Scripps Sports, said in a statement emailed to The Desk.
The broadcast studio was designed in partnership with California-based Drive, while the set was designed by Portland-based Pinnacle (which has offices in Chicago, Los Angeles and other locations). Quinn Pacini, the Vice President of Scripps Sports Broadcast Operations, and Scripps Vice President of Design Garrett Cook served as project partners on the new facility.
“We are the first broadcast network to commit to weekly studio shows for the WNBA and the NWSL,” Pacini said on Friday. “We are now excited to introduce a studio for the primary purpose of delivering to fans best-in-class studio shows, feature segments and graphics packages.”
Also this week, Scripps affirmed it was promoting its Paul Crane to a full-time on-air sports reporter at Scripps News. For two years, Crane worked as a sports contributor to Scripps News. He will start his full-time duties on August 12, and will work closely with Scripps sports correspondents and anchors at the company’s 50-plus local TV stations. Barrett Media was the first to report on his hiring.
Photos of the new Scripps Sports broadcast studio and set are below:
In addition to nationally-televised WNBA and NWSL games, Scripps Sports produces local coverage of National Hockey League (NHL) games from the Las Vegas Golden Knights and Florida Panthers, as well as games from the forthcoming Utah Hockey Club; and Big Sky Conference college athletic competitions.
Nationally-televised WNBA, NWSL and Big Sky Conference games are available on Ion broadcast stations and through Ion’s free, ad-supported streaming TV simulcast on platforms like Amazon’s Freevee, Fox’s Tubi, Google TV, Pluto TV, Plex, Samsung TV Plus, TCL TV Plus, The Roku Channel and newer versions of Tablo’s over-the-air digital video recorder.
