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NBC Sports Group Opens Broadcast Center In StamfordSTAMFORD, Jul 25, 2013 (The Hartford Courant - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- In a sprawling, modern former hair dye plant on the east side here, a web of more than a thousand miles of broadcast and network cable ties together the NBC Sports Group's new consolidated headquarters. The International Broadcast Center -- which celebrated its official opening on Wednesday with speeches from state and local officials, catered food and plenty of drink -- is one of the original large companies lured to add jobs in Connecticut under Gov. Dannel Malloy's First Five program. "Whether it's typeface or moving picture, it's the very best," said NBC Sports Chairman Michael Lazarus. Recounting breathless first impressions he's heard of the modern-industrial facility, with its exposed beams, pipes, duct work and floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere, he said: "Nothing spells success like jealousy." Over the past six months, NBC Sports has consolidated four former locations in three Northeast states here. The new facility has a giant newsroom, six on-air studios with control rooms, 50 graphics suites, more than 50 editing rooms, and 250 producers to man all that space. More than 500 employees work in the 300,000 square-foot facility now, the company said. And there's room for growth. Lazarus said that the new facility will likely house more employees as the network lands the rights to broadcast new sports. On Tuesday, NBC Sports and NASCAR announced a 10-year deal, beginning in 2015, for the network to air the second half of the Sprint Cup Series and the second half of the Nationwide Series. The broadcast company already had more than a hundred employees in studios elsewhere in Stamford when the state announced the deal in October 2011. Those employees and others from Philadelphia and New York CIty were consolidated here in recent months. What sealed the deal was a low-interest $20 million loan from the state of Connecticut, which is forgivable if NBC Sports meets its job creation targets in five years and invests at least $100 million. "We recognize that this is an industry growing rapidly," Malloy said to employees gathered for the ribbon cutting Wednesday. "This was a competition we wanted to win." He said they represent a part of the 3,600 private sector employees that the state has created in the past few years. "And if no one has said it to you yet, from state government: Welcome, welcome." The First Five program, which is administered by the state Department of Economic and Community Development, supports large companies that are willing to both invest at least $25 million in an expansion and create at least 200 new jobs within five years. The list of companies in the program numbers ten: Cigna, ESPN, NBC Sports Group, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, CareCentrix, Sustainable Building Systems, Deloitte, Bridgewater Associates, Charter Communications and Navigators. South Windsor's Ticketnetwork, an early First Five company, withdrew from the program after its chief executive was arrested. On Wednesday, Malloy and Lazarus, both holding one arm of a giant pair of scissors, cut a red ribbon, ceremonially inaugurating the center's opening. "I've done this a couple of times," Malloy said to the others on the stage. "Ready? Count one, two, three." Seeing the ribbon drop to the stage, the crowd of employees cheered, and turned to the food and drink and celebrating. ___ (c)2013 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |