ESPN Mexico breaks ground on new studios in Mexico City

ESPN President John Skipper and several network executives were in Mexico City last week for the groundbreaking of new ESPN facilities that will be home to the entire ESPN Mexico staff — currently in two different locations — under one roof.

Set to begin operations in July 2014, the new facility is located in Mexico City’s southwestern Periferico Sur neighborhood and will house state-of-the-art studios that will produce content for both the U.S. Hispanic and ESPN Latin North (Mexico, Central America and Venezuela) regions.

In addition to Skipper, employees from ESPN’s Mexico City team were in attendance, along with ESPN Mexico Senior Director of Production Armando Benitez; Vice President of ESPN Latin America North Gerardo Casanova; General Manager ESPN Deportes Lino Garcia; Senior Vice President Programming and Global X Scott Guglielmino; Vice President International and ESPN Deportes Production Rodolfo Martinez; ESPN Spanish-speaking Latin America Senior Vice President and General Manager Guillermo Tabanera and Executive Vice President and Managing Director ESPN International Russell Wolff.

In the video above, Skipper offers brief remarks on the project along with Manuel Arroyo, the CEO for Comtelstat, an integrated technology solutions provider contracted by ESPN to build the new facilities.

ESPN’s first studio in Mexico City began operations on Jan. 7, 2004 and produced 15 hours of weekly programming from one studio. Today, that same studio is responsible for 71 hours of programming per week.

Video edited by Tonya Malinowski