SEC Network’s Charlotte studio rebuild anchored by LED floor, massive touchscreen

A 203-inch touchscreen. An LED floor covering 85 percent of the studio. A wall that can turn a sports desk into a living room in the time it takes to change a lighting cue. SEC Network’s newly rebuilt studios in Charlotte, North Carolina, are built less around a single look than around the ability to keep changing it.

The project, completed ahead of the 2026 college football season, shifts how the network approaches studio space. 

“It’s a rethinking of how we do our shows, how we execute things and how we can grow as technology grows,” said Monica Belk, supervising director at ESPN.

ESPN’s brief for the build called for bright, modern environments that could accommodate new technology while still maintaining a visual connection to the SEC’s history and traditions. Rather than building fixed sets for individual shows, the network designed both studios to be reconfigured on the fly.

Studio A and Studio B

The network operates two studios out of its Charlotte facility, and each has taken on a distinct role. The revamped Studio B came online first, going on air at the end of May with the network’s spring baseball and softball coverage, and has since hosted championship coverage of the conference series.

Studio A is the larger of the two spaces and centers on a new five-person desk, an LED back wall and the 203-inch touchscreen, which Belk said is the largest of its kind among the network’s studios.

“We have state-of-the-art LEDs that will serve as our back wall area that can be immersed in a campus or in a suite of a college football stadium,” Belk said. “Between Bristol and Charlotte, we have the largest touchscreen.”

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Studio A’s LED back wall is designed to render different virtual environments depending on the show, while the LED floor beneath it extends across most of the studio’s footprint.

Belk noted that kind of coverage would not have been financially realistic in past studio builds. Falling LED costs are what made it possible to treat the floor as its own design surface rather than a fixed backdrop.

“With technology advancing, it’s made things more affordable and easier to accommodate with these new elements,” Belk said. She added that the floor was built to hold up to daily production use.

The space mixes whitewashed bricks with warm woods, and sleek structural accents tie together the various LED walls, which include abstract stadium and campus imagery. 

Studio B, by contrast, is built for a more conversational, sit-down format.

The space has already hosted multiple recurring programs, including “Marty & McGee” and “SEC Now,” and serves as the primary home for “SEC This Morning” and “Open Mic.” Its LED walls let the same physical set shift tone entirely from one show to the next.

The design of Studio B contrasts Studio A, with lighter woods and bright elements, including a glowing header piece. The studio is also not lacking for its own LED presence, with two curved displays, a rolling monitor and a series of LED cubbies. 

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Flexible layouts replace fixed desk positions

The network’s previous Charlotte studio relied on a single corner setup for secondary segments. Both new studios remove that constraint, giving producers room to build a show around whatever format fits best.

“We have so much flexibility in both spaces that we can do a multitude of shows and a multitude of setups from one studio and not be forced to one side for the desk,” Belk said. “We can have the entire floor be a desk area, or we can put in casual seating and do a different type of conversational show, or do a clip review of game footage.”

Some of that flexibility is physical rather than just digital.

Studio A includes a four-panel LED array on an automated track that can be joined into a single display or split apart, along with a two-panel display that can be manually angled or aligned to match.

“We have a four-pack that is on an automated track. We can bring them together, we can split them apart, we can configure them in a bunch of different ways,” Belk said.

Clickspring Design, which designed the network’s previous Charlotte studio, led the design of Studio B, while MPK Scenic handled Studio A. Chris Watson, ESPN’s lead for studio development and design assigned to the Charlotte studios, worked with both vendors alongside senior lighting director Aspen Rogers.

The sets were fabricated by EWI, with AV integration handled by Creative Technology Group and the LED floor installed by Hawk Sights Sounds LLC.

A gradual rollout through the season

Even with the new capability in place, Belk said the network plans to ease into full use of both spaces rather than activating everything at once.

“How we come on air Sept. 3 will not be how we look Oct. 3,” Belk said. “That month will be a lot of growth, a lot of us trying new things.”

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She framed the approach as consistent with how the Charlotte production staff already operates.

“We like to push the envelope and keep things moving and keep things interesting,” Belk said. “We will grow into the studio and run it through its paces. We may have some missteps and things where we’re like, okay, let’s not do that again. But I encourage us to push the envelope and try new things.”