Courtesy USA Today

(April 3, 2009) There should be limits to routines. So ESPN — after doing more than 32,000 SportsCenter shows from its Bristol, Conn., headquarters — tries this Monday: Doing SportsCenter somewhere else, making it the first ESPN-produced show to leave home.

Its late show — 1 a.m. ET/10 p.m. PT — will begin Monday airing regularly from Los Angeles. While ESPN's Bristol office is across the street from Otis Elevator's test tower — the largest such tower in the U.S. — its new L.A. office is across from the Lakers' home court.

Neil Everett and Stan Verrett will be the show's regular L.A. anchors. The office has about 70 staffers — Bristol has 3,400 — most of whom made the trek west. And Everett, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest and lived in Hawaii, says he wasn't dragooned into the posting. He recalls "hyperventilating" after an internal mass e-mailing asked who'd be interested in moving: "I managed to write 'PICK ME' and hit reply, but I'm not sure I did it right. I did it so fast."

The L.A. shows might draw in more sports celebs, given more of them wander Hollywood than the outer suburbs of Hartford. But the show, says Everett, will still look very familiar: "A trained eye would notice I'm talking with, say, (NHL analyst) Barry Melrose on a video screen instead of sitting next to him."