ESPN’s Wide World of Sports is about to get a little bigger as Disney plans for more events to come to the events center.
Sandra Pedicini of the Orlando Sentinel reports Disney has submitted documents to the state to build a 286,000-square-foot facility on the property on the edge of Orange and Osceola County on Disney property.
As the Sentinel article references, this facility would be bigger than the 180,000-square-foot Jostens Center built several years ago to add more volleyball and basketball courts for larger events at the facility.
The Wide World of Sports facility is largely used by Disney to host large youth tournaments, in addition to Atlanta Braves’ spring training (although this spring is likely to be the final year) and a season of Orlando City while the Orlando Citrus Bowl was under renovation.
It is already a very big facility. But Disney is constantly looking to expand and grow the type of events that can be held there. ESPN’s Wide World of Sports will host a Christian music festival this year and the Invictus Games, an athletic competition for wounded veterans. Disney is also building a new hotel adjacent to Wide World of Sports to host families coming in for tournaments and keep them on property for trips to the parks.
It is not clear what the new building would be for. It is clearly much bigger than the existing Milk House and Jostens Center. Maybe it will be a more formal arena for bigger events like the AdvoCare Invitational college basketball tournament.
In all likelihood, it will be a versatile building to host multiple events including those major events. A lot of the venues on the property are versatile enough to host multiple sports and so it would make sense to have another versatile facility for more sports both youth, college and maybe professional.
