ESPN Zone

For several years, when Monday Night Football went to halftime, it went to the ESPN Zone in Times Square¹. Every Sunday morning, from the day it opened to the day it closed, The Sports Reporters was broadcast from here too¹.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Disney's Michael Eisner opened the 42,000-square-foot sports dining and entertainment complex at the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway on September 14, 1999, with a star-studded gala^{2, 3}. It had more than 200 video monitors; Time Out counted three downstairs bars serving beer and bar food, and a fourth-floor room with more than 75 games^{2, 4}. When we listed it, we called it a sports bar on steroids, and asked how anyone who loved sports bars could not love it.

It closed on June 16, 2010, when parent company Walt Disney shut every ESPN Zone except the ones in Los Angeles and Anaheim, and The Sports Reporters moved to ESPN's home base in Bristol, Connecticut^{1, 5, 6}.

The Durst Organization struggled to find a replacement, and a deal with Express fell apart when the clothing chain signed instead for the old T.G.I. Friday's space at 46th and Broadway⁵. In 2012 H&M agreed to take the whole place⁵. It's H&M - 4 Times Square now, at 1472 Broadway⁷.