As visitors emerge from the nearly century old Spring Street subway station, a distinctive structure rises above the asphalt, accompanied by a line of spectators eager to gain entry and watch television come to life. Behind the terracotta facade and pristine glass panels, ESPN host Mike Greenberg is at the Hyperion Café picking up an omelet for breakfast as the clock moves closer to showtime.
While there is no proverbial Main Street U.S.A. to be found with a majestic castle at the end, 7 Hudson Square is unmistakably ‘Disney’ — replete with signifiers of the company’s various brands all housed under the same roof. The media conglomerate recently consolidated its New York City-based operations into the Robert A. Iger Building, moving into the space after inking a 99-year lease valued at $650 million. The ESPN morning shows “Get Up,” “First Take” and “UnSportsmanLike” arrived in June after previously airing from Pier 17 at South Street Seaport.
“Any change for people who are set in their ways is challenging,” Greenberg said. “That said, I think the move is, in literally every conceivable way, a positive move. Everything about this is a step up.”
The ESPN television studios are located underground and accessible through a long corridor off which other Disney-owned networks broadcast their programming. “Good Morning America” is now located near the set of “Live with Kelly and Mark,” eliminating the subway ride that was previously necessary to visit both ABC shows.
As it pertains to ESPN specifically, the company worked closely with the ABC News team amid a multiyear planning process to construct the spaces. With the company in transition as it prepares to launch its direct-to-consumer product, 7 Hudson Square is an investment into these shows, talent and studio content. ESPN is taking the opposite approach of other sports networks, which have licensed out studio shows to digital media companies and creators or ceased production altogether.
Chris Calcinari, the senior vice president of content operations for ESPN, played an integral role in turning this vision into a reality and supervised the buildout in real time.
“Our goal was to really create a space — we called it a ‘content factory’ — in New York City where talent could come and producers can come and get excited about being in that space,” Calcinari said. “I think we accomplished that when we were at Seaport, and our goal is to continue that in 7 Hudson.”
When ESPN opened its Seaport facility in 2017, the morning television shows began utilizing a remote integration model (REMI) for production, allowing producers, directors and most of the staff to work remotely from control rooms in Bristol, Conn. The company has retained this setup and established permanent connectivity between both facilities instead of using third-party transmission lines. The streamlined alteration permitted ESPN to broadcast “NBA Today” from Hudson Square during the NBA Draft and REMI back to Los Angeles, Calif.
“Our first day in this studio, which was June 9, I was nervous coming in,” Greenberg said. “We did two rehearsals, and I was nervous. ‘How will the communications be? Will there be problems?,’ and to the everlasting credit of all of the people who worked so hard, of which I’m not one, to ensure that we were really ready to go Day 1.”
Greenberg has been hosting “Get Up” since 2018 and works with a rotating panel of contributors from across the ESPN talent roster. On this particular day, much of the discussion centered around the National Football League with the start of training camp. Former general manager Mike Tannenbaum and NFL reporter Jeff Darlington were in Studio X with Greenberg while former NFL safety Ryan Clark was appearing remotely. The show utilizes a range of areas on set beyond the desk, including the north monitor, an interview area and LED floors, the latter of which is still in experimentation.
The aesthetic of the 2,100 square-foot space aligns with that established at Seaport. The walls are covered with sports memorabilia and odes to New York City, including an ESPN logo on a sliding wall crafted using subway tiles. There is also a customized Northwestern University football jersey with Greenberg’s name on the back, a Jets football helmet and a framed photo of Tiger Woods, which Darlington adroitly spun on his finger akin to a basketball.
“We were really happy with the set and scenic that we had at Seaport, and the goal was to really continue that vibe,” Calcinari said. “It really is Greeny’s personality too. He weighed in on things on the set and scenic also.”
“When we were leaving the Seaport, we were talking about, ‘Do we do a big going away show?’ My feeling was, I don’t want to do that — as much as I loved that space — because as far as our audience is concerned, we’re going to be on again Monday in the exact same time and it shouldn’t change anything for them,’” Greenberg added, “and I think it has changed almost nothing to the viewing experience, and that’s what we were looking for.”
The program continues to use LEDs as its backdrop, displaying high-quality images of the downtown Manhattan skyline and Oreo Way Skybridge near Chelsea Market. “First Take” has adopted the LEDs to establish a different setting in the adjacent Studio Y, deviating from the neutral density (ND) windows that showcased views of Brooklyn Bridge Park from Pier 17. Despite being two stories underground, the studio resembles a Manhattan penthouse with bespoke details, subtle nuance and industrial design.
“We went for a modern look with the ‘First Take’ set,” Calcinari said. “Again, trying to play into Stephen A.’s personality a little bit as well – but the thought process was to sort of go in a different direction with that particular set.”
Both of the studios feature an array of Sony cameras enabling 4K picture quality, high dynamic range and the expanded Rec. 2020 color gamut. Moreover, the locations possess tracking systems for artificial and virtual reality elements and also have neighboring spaces that control graphics, lights and audio. For “First Take” in particular, the morning debate show adopted a 360-degree shooting style in which the entirety of the studio can be displayed during a given segment.
“The space is slightly smaller, so I think that’s probably one of the bigger challenges,” Calcinari said. “The shooting in the round is unique for us. I can’t think of any other show that we really do that with [off] the top of my head. It’s a style more than anything else, again, that our directors decided they wanted to go in that direction.”
The number of people in the studio fluctuates depending on the day, but the show often employs the west wall for standups and to display countdown lists. The studio also has an LED picture frame that is used to display segment titles, graphics and photos of the cast along with the latest technology and equipment.
“I think what you’re going to see is just improved quality – picture quality, the sharpness of the productions,” Calcinari said. “I think that will all show [and] shine through to the viewers is our hope. The way we execute the shows are pretty much the same between the two facilities, but we just have newer tools that our goal is to utilize [and] improve the quality of the productions.”
Mere footsteps from 7 Hudson Square is the New York office of Good Karma Brands, which owns ESPN New York and manages sales and operations for ESPN Radio and podcasts. Audacy is located two intersections away with studios for WFAN, 1010 WINS and its overall New York cluster. While these two facilities host local sports talk radio programs in morning drive, Hudson Square is home to the national ESPN Radio offering “UnSportsmanLike” with Evan Cohen, Michelle Smallmon and Chris Canty. The program broadcasts from a flex space on the fourth floor of the building and contains Panasonic cameras and a Wheatstone audio interface.
“We had what we call a digital studio/radio studio at Seaport as well … so it was really just migrating that same mentality, that same workflow over to 7 Hudson,” Calcinari said. “Obviously, again, in a brand-new space, it’s a little bigger, the scenic’s a little bit different, but yeah, no major changes there or challenges.”
The Walt Disney Company previously used studio space across different sections of Manhattan for its studio broadcasts. In merging under one roof, there is the ability for cross-platform integration, sharing studios and streamlined publicity tours. Throughout the summer, ESPN talent such as Malika Andrews and Joe Buck have appeared on “Good Morning America,” and Greenberg interviewed Mark Consuelos five minutes before he was going on air.
“It used to be like Kelly Ripa was all the way uptown and “GMA” was in midtown and we were all the way downtown, and so if you wanted to promote something, you had to choose one Disney entity to be where you were going to go,” Greenberg articulated. “Now we are literally one-stop shopping for the ultimate promotion, so I think it’ll make it much easier for all of us to get huge-name guests.”
The new headquarters feature a common space on the 10th floor featuring living room furniture, a giant LED screen and company store plus access to terraces overlooking the neighborhood. A staircase leads to a gallery that contains photos of company luminaries and prodigious figures in its history. The upper floors of the building feature office space and meeting rooms with sweeping panoramas of the Hudson River, plus additional terraces that contain views of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and Freedom Tower.
“We were in a small studio [at Seaport],” Calcinari explained. “There was no cafeteria, there was no company store. All the comfort and sort of the company things that go on in a wholly-owned building is very different than being in a third-party facility, and I think our team is really enjoying having all of those things available to them, so I think so far, so good. It’s been a great experience for everybody.”
Calcinari acknowledged that ESPN enjoyed broadcasting from the Seaport studios and that the company would have probably been there “a lot longer” had Disney decided not to build this facility. In the end though, network employees in New York City have a new building to call home as ESPN enters a seminal new chapter in its history.
“I grew up a five-minute walk from where we are currently sitting, so from a purely personal standpoint, it is a wonderful location, but I think what the studios do for us and the proximity to the other Disney-owned shows is really the headline here,” Greenberg said. “That’s more important than anything else.”
