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.
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
