Universal Sports
Moving to State-of-the-Art Westlake Village Facility on January 1, 2010
HD-Ready Production and Other Major
Upgrades Await Network and Digital Platforms on the New Universal Sports
Westlake Village Campus
Partnership with David Murdock to
Deliver Key Messages Around Health and Nutrition – “Live Right, Eat Right”
Los Angeles, November 16, 2009: Universal Sports is consolidating its television and digital units
into a new world headquarters, encompassing a state-of-the-art HD-ready, 40,000
square foot production and office facility in Westlake Village, CA, near
Thousand Oaks. The facility was
originally conceived and built by Dole Food Company Chairman David Murdock to
promote health and wellness programming.
The
move represents further growth and enhancement for Universal Sports, which has expanded
its reach during the past year to more than 56 million homes and upgraded its
programming offerings and quality across all platforms.
“Integrating
our television, digital and corporate personnel into the new Universal Sports
Westlake Village Campus symbolizes our commitment to expanding our Olympic
sports coverage,” says Universal Sports Chairman and CEO Claude Ruibal. “We’re very pleased we can offer our
distributors, advertisers and viewers the best possible creative presentation
of our products with the immediate ability to move to HD combined with the
ability to offer ongoing live news coverage of the Olympic sports we cover.”
“We
are very excited to be partnering with Universal Sports, not just at our
production facility, but around the world, helping us deliver our message of
good nutrition,” says David H. Murdock, Chairman of Dole Food Company Inc. “One of my missions in life is to share
this kind of knowledge with others, so they can live more vital, active,
satisfying lives. Universal Sports
will be a perfect platform to help us accomplish this.”
The
new facilities contain state of the art production, control rooms, editing,
sound and graphics facilities, with a 10,000 square foot production area as
well as a 6,000 square foot stage.
Employees and facilities currently located in Santa Monica and Glendale,
CA, as well as those in Bethesda, MD, will be relocated to the new Universal
Sports Campus for 2010, with only a sales staff remaining in New York.
The
new Universal Sports Campus includes the Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village adjacent
to the production facilities, so visiting talent, staff and other personnel
will have an easy walk to the Universal Sports offices and production facility. The move also creates great synergistic
opportunities with David Murdock’s group by leveraging the nutrition research
and education efforts that have been advanced through the Dole Nutrition
Institute, California Health & Longevity Institute and at the North
Carolina Research Campus. Together,
the companies can inspire consumers to adopt healthier lifestyles through
sports and proper diet.
ABOUT UNIVERSAL SPORTS: Universal Sports, a partnership between
NBC Sports and InterMedia Partners, serves as the preeminent multiplatform
destination for Olympic-related and lifestyle sports programming available on
television and online. Universal
Sports, available
in 56 million homes, is in nine of the
top 10 DMAs including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas-Fort Worth, San
Francisco, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Houston, Seattle and Denver. Major world
championship and Olympic qualifying events found on Universal Sports range from
track and field, skiing, swimming, gymnastics, marathons and cycling, to
volleyball, rowing, triathlon, fencing, speed skating and martial arts.
UniversalSports.com delivers an immersive experience via live and on-demand
competition coverage, as well as interaction with top athletes through blogs
and in-depth access to Olympic sports news and information year round. For more
information on the availability of the Universal Sports 24-hour television
channel, please visit UniversalSports.tv.
ABOUT DOLE FOOD
COMPANY, INC: Dole Food Company, Inc. is the world’s largest producer and
marketer of fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, packaged and frozen foods.
ABOUT THE DOLE
NUTRITION INSTITUTE (DNI): Founded by David Murdock to “Feed the World
with Knowledge,” the DNI harvests the latest findings from Dole’s own global
laboratories and universities around the world to bring consumers a cornucopia
of useful information including the Dole
Nutrition News, a monthly electronic newsletter with 2.5 million
subscribers, cookbooks, videos, educational posters, music, children’s activity
books, games and much more. This year the DNI will be publishing Mr. Murdock’s
book, The Dole Nutrition Handbook: What
to Eat and How to Live for a Longer, Healthier Life.
ABOUT CALIFORNIA
HEALTH & LONGEVITY INSTITUTE: California Health & Longevity Institute,
located in Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village, is the only place of its kind
offering a seamless integration of evidence-based medicine with qualified
experts and programs designed to improve health and wellness for individuals
and organizations. The Institute uses a 360-degree approach by
integrating five disciplines to achieve lifestyle and wellness goals: Medical,
Nutrition, Fitness, Life Balance, and Spa. An on-site medical clinic
fuses the latest breakthroughs in Western preventive-care medicine with
complementary and alternative Eastern medical techniques, and houses a complete
imaging suite, dermatology center, and a medical laboratory.
ABOUT THE NORTH
CAROLINA RESEARCH CAMPUS: The North Carolina Research Campus exists to study the health benefits
of fruits and vegetables. It is the only campus in the world encompassing eight
universities all working together for the benefit of health and longevity.
These include Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill, NC State University, UNC
Charlotte, North Carolina Central University, NC A&T State University, UNC
Greensboro and Appalachian State University.
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Contacts
Universal Sports: Greg Hughes
404-394-3700
ghughes5425@gmail.com
Amy Sorrells
404-550 4885
amyssorrells@comcast.net
Melisa Mowry
240-396-1906
mmowry@universalsports.com