SportsCenter was conceived in 1979 and created by ESPN executives
Chet Simmons and Scotty Connal. The program was originally anchored by
Chris Berman,
George Grande,
Greg Gumbel,
Lee Leonard,
Bob Ley,
Sal Marchiano and
Tom Mees.
1970s Grande introduced the country to ESPN when he co-anchored the premiere episode of
SportsCenter on September 7, 1979, with Leonard, a longtime
New York City sports broadcaster. According to
Entertainment Weekly, Leonard said in the opening of the show: "If you're a fan, what you will see in the next minutes, hours, and days to follow may convince you that you've gone to sports heaven." Grande spent ten more years with ESPN and
SportsCenter until he left the network in 1989. Chris Berman joined ESPN one month after its launch and became a fixture on the program until the early 1990s, when his efforts became more focused on
National Football League and
Major League Baseball coverage. He does, however, still occasionally appear as a substitute anchor. Bob Ley, who also hosted
Outside the Lines, regularly appeared on the Sunday morning edition of
SportsCenter until his retirement in 2019.
1980s In 1988, the program's format was changed by
executive producer Walsh from focusing on individual sports or leagues to a "newspaper-style" structure, prioritizing stories by importance rather than by sport. The program's title sequence during its early years included various kinds of sports balls flying outward, set to a rapid-fire electronic music version of "
Pulstar" by
Vangelis. By 1989, the first of several theme songs to incorporate ESPN's trademark six-note fanfare went into use. The theme music was originally composed by
John Colby, who served as ESPN's
music director from 1984 to 1992, creating and producing music for various sporting events and programs seen on the network. The current version of the theme was composed in 2006 by Annie Roboff, who also co-wrote
Faith Hill's 1998 hit "
This Kiss".
1990s In 1994, ESPN launched the
This Is SportsCenter advertising campaign, a series of humorous,
tongue-in-cheek spots featuring anchors and crew, based on the show's opening tagline. The ads ran from 1995 to 2024 when the campaign was replaced by "My Life, My Team." The team of
Dan Patrick and
Keith Olbermann—who anchored the 11:00 p.m. (
Eastern) edition of the program—achieved great popularity during the late 1980s and the 1990s, a period interrupted by Olbermann's brief move to spin-off channel
ESPN2 upon that network's launch in 1993. After Olbermann left ESPN in 1997,
Kenny Mayne became Patrick's co-anchor on the late broadcast; when Patrick was moved to the 6:00 p.m. edition,
Rich Eisen and
Stuart Scott became the show's primary anchor team.
2000s In 2001,
Toronto-based
Bell Globemedia and ESPN (which received a minority stake) jointly acquired
The Sports Network (TSN). As part of its shift to ESPN-influenced branding, the
specialty channel rebranded its existing sports news program
SportsDesk and changed its name to
SportsCentre, using the same introductions and theme music as the ESPN version, except with its title rendered using
Canadian spelling. On September 11, 2001, ESPN interrupted regular programming at 11:05 a.m. Eastern to cover the immediate aftermath of the
terror attacks through a
simulcast of
ABC News coverage. ESPN considered
suspending that night's editions of
SportsCenter, before deciding to air a half-hour edition in which they announced the cancellations of major upcoming sporting events. On June 7, 2004,
SportsCenter began broadcasting in
high definition. Along with the conversion, the program introduced a new set designed by
Walt Disney Imagineering (situated in a studio located at ESPN's new "Digital Center"), and a new graphics package titled "Revolution" that was developed by Troika Design Group. During that summer, ESPN celebrated its
25th anniversary, by counting down the top 100 moments in sports over the previous 25 years. The countdown was seen on each
SportsCenter broadcast daily beginning on May 31, 2004; the countdown concluded with the #1 moment, the
United States men's national ice hockey team's
victory over the
USSR during the
1980 Winter Olympics, airing on September 7, 2004. During the summer of 2005,
SportsCenter premiered a segment called "50 States in 50 Days", where a different
SportsCenter anchor traveled to a different state each day to discover the sports, sports history, and athletes of the state. On April 4, 2006,
SportsCenter began to show highlights of
Major League Baseball games in progress at the program's airtime; the rights to broadcast these highlights while games were ongoing was previously given exclusivity to fellow ESPN program,
Baseball Tonight; the in-progress highlights are shown as part of the "Baseball Tonight Extra" segment. Prior to that date, video footage from MLB games was not shown on any
SportsCenter broadcasts until the games completed play. On February 11, 2007, following the
NBA game between the
Chicago Bulls and the
Phoenix Suns,
SportsCenter aired its 30,000th broadcast. The special milestone edition was anchored by
Steve Levy and Stuart Scott; Bob Ley, Chris Berman and Dan Patrick made guest appearances to recap events as well as bloopers from the first 10,000 shows (all three men individually counted down each set of 10,000 clips). ESPN also debuted the
SportsCenter Minute, a one-minute
SportsCenter update that is streamed exclusively on
ESPN.com. Four months later on May 6, another major change to
SportsCenter was introduced on that night's 11:00 p.m. (Eastern) edition, with the debut of a "rundown" graphic that appears on the right-side third of the screen. This feature was originally only shown during rebroadcasts of the overnight edition on Monday through Saturday nights, and on the main Sunday night telecast; on ESPNHD, the sidebar graphic filled the right
pillarbox where the ESPNHD logo would usually appear when
standard definition footage was presented. The 6:00 p.m. edition of
SportsCenter moved one hour earlier to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on May 28, 2007; at that time, the early-evening edition was, for the first time, expanded to three hours. During that broadcast, ESPN aired live coverage of
Roger Clemens's second start for the
New York Yankees'
minor league affiliate in
Scranton, Pennsylvania. The 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time edition of
SportsCenter on August 7, 2007, which was anchored by
John Buccigross and
Cindy Brunson, showed live coverage of
Barry Bonds's 756th career home run, which broke the old MLB record set by
Hank Aaron (ESPN was carrying the game live on ESPN2). In August 2008, the former
WWE employee
Jonathan Coachman joined ESPN to anchor the show. On August 11, 2008, during the opening week of the
2008 Beijing Olympic Games,
SportsCenter began airing live from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The original plan was to start the live block three hours earlier at 6:00 a.m. Eastern; however, the network decided to scale back the length of the daytime broadcast before the expansion occurred. That same year,
Hannah Storm (former
NBC Sports reporter and anchor of
CBS's
The Early Show) joined ESPN to anchor the 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. block of the program. The new format included two teams of two anchors in three-hour shifts: • 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time:
Kevin Negandhi (originally
Josh Elliott) and Hannah Storm • 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time:
Jay Crawford (originally
Robert Flores, then
John Buccigross) and
Chris McKendry In addition,
Sage Steele would provide updates every 30 minutes from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The changes also included a new website for the program – SportsCenter.com, which launched on August 11, 2008 – to promote more interaction with viewers. On April 6, 2009 (starting with the 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time edition, which was anchored by Hannah Storm and Sage Steele),
SportsCenter debuted a new graphics package that saw the "rundown" graphic – shown during the daytime editions – being shifted to the left side of the screen. On that same date,
SportsCenter began producing its 1:00 a.m. Eastern Time edition of
SportsCenter live from ESPN's production facilities in the newly constructed
L.A. Live complex (just across from the
Staples Center) in Los Angeles. The set is virtually identical to the setup at the main facilities in Bristol, and the late-night West Coast broadcast would be produced as simply another edition of the program.
Neil Everett and
Stan Verrett were appointed as the primary anchors for the Los Angeles-based editions of
SportsCenter. A new
BottomLine ticker was also unveiled that day on four of the five ESPN networks (ESPN,
ESPN2,
ESPN Classic and
ESPNU); the redesigned ticker was quickly dropped, reverting to the old BottomLine design – which had been in use since April 2003 – due to an equipment failure (however, this ticker was operational for the
2009 NFL draft and the
2009 NBA draft). After technical issues with the revamped BottomLine were fixed, the new BottomLine was reinstated on July 8. The
2009 U.S. Open Golf Championship, which was repeatedly delayed due to weather, aired on both
NBC and ESPN. Portions of ESPN's broadcast, including the early parts of the Monday final round, were presented under the "
SportsCenter at the U.S. Open" banner – using a similar branding as the segments-within-the-show focusing on nightly highlights and analysis of a particular event originating from the event locations (such as "
SportsCenter at the
Super Bowl" and "
SportsCenter at the
World Series"). In August 2009, Robert Flores – co-anchor of the program's 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. block – was replaced on the early-afternoon broadcasts with John Buccigross.
2010s On August 30, 2010, ESPN expanded
SportsCenter to
ESPNews, airing an additional seven hours of the program in separate blocks from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time, canceling the channel's self-named rolling coverage. By late 2010, the "rundown" graphic was expanded to all editions of
SportsCenter. On April 22, 2011, Josh Elliott – original and main co-anchor of the 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time block of
SportsCenter – left ESPN to become news anchor for ABC's
Good Morning America and was replaced on the late morning block of the program by Kevin Negandhi. By mid-2011, shortly after ESPN and ESPN2 both converted to a
16:9 letterbox format (in compliance with the
#10 AFD code) on their primary standard definition feeds,
SportsCenter began showing all high-definition and standard-definition footage in the appropriate aspect ratio on the SD feed (with stylized pillarboxes adorned with the ESPN logo used on footage presented in standard definition). That same year on October, the former WWE employee
Todd Grisham joined ESPN to anchor the show. The move required the letterboxed image to be shrunk in order to be displayed in that manner, with the "rundown" graphic continuing to be placed on the left side of the screen. In August 2011,
John Anderson – who previously served as the 11:00 p.m. (Eastern) anchor – was moved to the early-evening 6:00 p.m. broadcast, replacing
Brian Kenny (who departed ESPN to become a program host for the
MLB Network). ESPN launched a completely redesigned SportsCenter.com website on October 16, 2011. On August 25, 2012, the BottomLine was used to acknowledge the death of astronaut
Neil Armstrong, the
first man to walk on the Moon. It was reportedly only the fifth of six times that an outside news event not involving an athlete was reported on the ticker, alongside the news of the September 11 attacks, the death of civil rights pioneer
Rosa Parks in 2005, the election of
Barack Obama as
President of the United States in
2008, the
Killing of Osama bin Laden, and the later death of former
South African president
Nelson Mandela on December 5, 2013. On December 3, 2012,
Lindsay Czarniak became the main co-anchor of the 6:00 p.m. edition of
SportsCenter. On February 8 and 9, 2013, the 11:00 p.m. editions of
SportsCenter on both nights were broadcast from Los Angeles, due to a massive snowstorm in the
Northeastern United States that prevented some staff from conducting the program out of ESPN's Bristol headquarters. Stan Verrett anchored both editions from the network's Los Angeles studios. In late March 2013, David Lloyd and Sage Steele, both of whom were previously co-anchored the weekend morning editions – moved to the weekday early-afternoon block (from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Eastern). The current daytime format, which was implemented that month, now features three teams of two anchors in two-hour shifts. On June 21, 2013, a large
LED high definition monitor placed behind the main anchor desk was added to the main
SportsCenter set in the network's Bristol facility. In February 2014, production of the weeknight 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. (Eastern Time) editions of
SportsCenter was temporarily relocated back to Bristol, due to renovations being made at the network's
SportsCenter studio in Los Angeles. In addition, Neil Everett and Stan Verrett – both of whom had anchored
SportsCenter from Los Angeles since 2009 – were moved back to the network's headquarters, before both hosts and the program's production returned to the then-newly renovated Los Angeles studio on June 23, 2014. On June 22, 2014,
SportsCenter began broadcasting from Studio X of ESPN's new Digital Center 2 facility, which concurrently resulted in a major overhaul to the program's production and on-air appearance. The new studio incorporates over 114 displays – including two touchscreens, large vertical screens, and a "multidimensional" video wall consisting of 56 monitors of varying sizes and positions that can be used to create pseudo-3D effects. The monitor displays can be used to show video content (such as highlights) and other relevant imagery (such as statistics), emphasizing the ability for anchors to present content on-set through means other than just through voiceovers. A new graphics package was also introduced, emphasizing a bolder, yet more simplified look – in both their appearance and the level of content. To coincide with the redesign of
SportsCenter, a revised variant of ESPN's BottomLine ticker was introduced to complement the new graphical design, using a dark grey color scheme. A downscaled replica of DC2's set was constructed for broadcasts originating from ESPN's Los Angeles studio. On February 2 and 3, 2015, Lindsay Czarniak anchored the 6:00 p.m. (Eastern) edition of
SportsCenter from ESPN's Los Angeles facilities, due to a major snowstorm that hit the Northeastern United States the previous weekend, which also affected ESPN's main facilities in Bristol. The previous week from January 26 to 30, Czarniak had co-anchored the 6:00 p.m. edition alongside John Anderson from the parking lot of the
Scottsdale Fashion Square in
Scottsdale, Arizona as part of the program's coverage of
Super Bowl XLIX. After that week, Anderson was moved back to the 11:00 p.m. broadcast, making Czarniak the solo anchor of the 6:00 p.m. editions on weeknights starting on February 2. On September 7, 2015, Scott Van Pelt became the solo anchor of a revised 12:00 a.m. (Eastern) edition of the program, which is more freeform than other
SportsCenter editions and promoted as
SportsCenter at Night, or SC@Night for short. In addition to featuring highlights and discussion panels, it features Van Pelt's analysis of sports events in a style similar to that conducted on his former radio talk show
SVP and Russillo, during the replacement of
Danny Kanell as the new co-host of
Russillo Show alongside
Ryen Russillo, and utilizes a modified version of the show's theme (composed by
Timbaland), as well as a different lighting and graphics set. In October 2015,
Ronda Rousey became the first female athlete to guest host on the show. On February 8, 2016,
SportsCenter moved its start time from 9:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time, with the launch of a new three hour morning block from 7:00 to 10:00 a.m., titled
SportsCenter:AM, also branded
SC:AM. Maintaining a faster-paced format, the program focuses on highlights from the previous night in the first hour, the top plays and moments of the previous night's sporting events in the second hour, and the upcoming day in sports in the third hour.
SportsCenter:AM also shares resources with
Good Morning America and ESPN2/ESPN Radio's
Mike & Mike. On October 11, 2016, ESPN named
His & Hers co-hosts
Jemele Hill and
Michael Smith as co-anchors of the 6:00 p.m. ET edition of
SportsCenter, effective February 6, 2017 (the day after
Super Bowl LI). They replaced Lindsay Czarniak, who had been anchoring the 6:00 p.m. ET edition of the show since December 3, 2012. On November 13, 2015, ESPN interrupted regular programming around 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, to cover the immediate aftermath of the
terror attacks on
Stade de France and downtown
Paris as well as the hostage situation in the
Bataclan theatre, where a concert by American rock band
Eagles of Death Metal was interrupted by terrorists who killed 89 people.
ESPN FC correspondent Jonathan Johnson, as well as then
French president François Hollande, were attending the game in the
Stade de France, around which the three explosions occurred. While Hollande was evacuated from the stadium at half-time, Johnson remained in the stadium, and after the game he described to the viewers the panic of the fans who attended the game and then rushed the field, after being noticed by the Stade de France's
PA announcer. After the hostage crisis ended, a special edition of the program was aired, featuring analysis and reports on the impact that the Paris attacks had on the sports world and
social media reactions of sportspeople to the attacks, announcing the postponements of some major European sporting events that had been announced up to that weekend. On January 3, 2017, the 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. ET editions of
SportsCenter moved from ESPN to ESPN2, effectively switching channels with the two-hour debate program
First Take, which moved from ESPN2 to ESPN. On February 6, 2017, the newly revamped 6:00 p.m. ET of
SportsCenter, known as
SC6 with Michael/Jemele (pronounced
SportsCenter at 6), debuted with Michael Smith and Jemele Hill as co-anchors. This new format featured some elements taken from Smith and Hill's former show,
His & Hers and, like
SportsCenter with SVP, was more freeform than other editions of
SportsCenter. In addition,
SC6 focused on the night ahead in sports, as well as breaking sports news as warranted. On April 26, 2017,
SportsCenter anchors
Jay Crawford, Chris Hassel,
Jade McCarthy,
Sara Walsh and
Jaymee Sire (who had co-anchored
SportsCenter:AM since its debut on February 8, 2016) were among the 100 staffers who were let go by ESPN. Several notable changes were implemented for
SportsCenter beginning on August 28, 2017.
Sage Steele and
Randy Scott replaced Sire (who was laid off four months earlier) and
Kevin Negandhi as co-anchors for the weekday editions of
SportsCenter:AM joining
Jay Harris, while
Matt Barrie and
Elle Duncan co-anchor the weekend editions of
SportsCenter:AM alongside Negandhi (who has since left that show to co-anchor the weeknight 6:00 p.m. ET editions of
SportsCenter with Steele). In another notable change, the "rundown" graphic has been permanently removed after a decade and (with the exception of the midnight ET edition with Scott Van Pelt) it has now been replaced by a bug on the lower-left portion of the 16:9 screen. The bug now identifies specific editions of
SportsCenter (such as
SC:AM,
SC@Night and so on). ESPN debuted a brand new advertising campaign for
SportsCenter which was created by
Droga5 in late 2017. It was originally expected to replace the long-running
This Is SportsCenter advertising campaign as it would be discontinued. As of 2020, the latter advertising campaign (This is SportsCenter) is still being shown. On November 29, 2017, within an announcement of 150 behind-the-scenes staff members being laid off, ESPN announced the end of the primetime
SportsCenter editions airing on ESPNews as of November 30 (breaking sports news coverage will be maintained where needed). Following Jemele Hill's departure from
SportsCenter for
The Undefeated after the final
SC6 show on February 2, 2018, Michael Smith became the solo anchor of the 6:00 p.m. ET edition of
SportsCenter, which itself reverted to that title on February 5; Smith himself departed from
SportsCenter on March 9. As of March 1, 2021, the weeknight 6:00 p.m. ET editions of
SportsCenter are now co-anchored by Kevin Neghandi and Elle Duncan, the latter of whom replaced Sage Steele (who in turn, moved to the noon ET edition). With the debut of
Get Up! on ESPN on April 2, 2018,
SportsCenter:AM moved to
ESPN2 (the first hour of the latter show has since moved back to ESPN), while
Golic and Wingo moved to
ESPNews. Consequently, the 10:00 a.m. ET edition of
SportsCenter on ESPN2 was eliminated. On September 6, 2019, in honor of the 40th anniversary of ESPN's launch, Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick made a surprise on-air reunion as guest hosts for the late-night edition, which featured tributes to their time at the network.
2020s On March 11, 2020, the NBA announced that it would suspend the
2019–20 NBA season indefinitely following the conclusion of that night's games as a result of
Rudy Gobert testing positive for
COVID-19 before a game between the
Utah Jazz and the
Oklahoma City Thunder at
Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, which caused the game to be initially postponed. The following day, all of the other major sports leagues followed suit in suspending their seasons for an indefinite period in order to combat the
COVID-19 pandemic, and several major
college basketball tournaments were also canceled after plans to initially play the games
without an audience fell through. After the cancellations were announced, ESPN aired a special edition of the program chronicling the effects of the pandemic and its impact on sporting events and the athletes' reactions to the pandemic via social media. As a result of the pandemic, ESPN significantly reduced the production of
SportsCenter, which at the time aired live three times each weekday (noon, 6:00 and 11:00 p.m., all times Eastern) and twice each on Saturday and Sunday. Beginning with the weekend of September 12, 2020, and also, the week of September 14, 2020,
SportsCenter:AM returned to its regularly scheduled daily 7:00 a.m. ET time slot. On weekdays, the first hour of the show is now aired on ESPN from 7–8 a.m. ET, with the remaining two hours on ESPN2 from 8–10 a.m. ET. On weekends, ESPN airs a two-hour block of the show from 7–9 a.m. ET. On August 29, 2022,
SportsCenter debuted a newly revamped Studio X, complete with a larger LED video wall, new LED monitors and a bigger news desk to accommodate in-studio guests. Studio X underwent a second revamp the following summer and on September 7, 2023 (coincidentally the 44th anniversary of ESPN's launch),
SportsCenter returned to the main news desk in the same studio, starting with that day's inaugural 2pm ET edition (which replaced the noon ET edition; that time slot has since been filled by
The Pat McAfee Show). In February 2025, ESPN announced a new version of SportsCenter,
SC+, which will air exclusively on
Disney+. On May 19, 2025
SportsCenter aired its final show from Los Angeles, anchored by Linda Cohn and Stan Verrett. Cohn's predecessor, Neil Everett, made a special appearance on the final Los Angeles edition, which ended production after 16 years. ==Segments==