The Ultimate Fight Championship is nearly ready to unveil its new 180,000 sq ft headquarters in Nevada. The building, which will house UFC’s offices and athletic facilities, is quite the mixed use feat, though the fighters - and the technology used to help them hone their craft - takes center stage.
In a video provided to ENR Southwest, James Kimball, UFC’s vice president of operations, shows off the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s headquarters. Construction on the new UFC office and athletic center has been taking place for nearly two years and is nearing completion.
Kimball leads viewers through what will soon be a training room for the likes of Demetrious Johnson, Conor McGregor and Daniel Cormier. While the room is bare at the time the video was taken, renderings depict a state-of-the-art exercise facility complete with high-end equipment and technology in a minimalist design with concrete walls and the UFC logo emblazoned in red on the slate colored carpets.
“We have video camera analysis, force plates in the platforms, iPads so the athletes can see themselves as they do the workouts...The data will collect here, we’ll analyze it, we’ll measure it, and then we’ll share it with our athletes and their teams so that we can all objectively measure their improvement.”
The UFC has not released the exact cost of the facility, but the new campus’ land, 24 acres off the 215 Beltway in Las Vegas, was bought by parent company, Zuffa LLC, in 2013 for $7.8 million.
The centerpiece of the new facility is the UFC Performance Institute, which features an octagon as well as 40,000 sq ft of training, workout and rehab space.
Lawrence Epstein, senior executive vice president and CFO, says in footage provided to ENR by UFC that the company went around the world to gather inspiration from best in class sport facilities to inspire the new athletic center before hiring “the best consultants in the industry” to make the dream a reality.
On the virtual tour, Epstein also addresses the facility’s office space, which has a “collaborative nature, inclusive for every single department to work together.” The facility was constructed by Bentar and designed by KGA, and is keeps the fighers front and center at all times. The office area actually surrounds the UFC Performance Institute, so all the employees can see the athletes they work so hard to promote. And that’s what Epstein actually wants to talk about. That’s the meat of this project.
Even the conference rooms are named after athletes. As Epstein explains, “This facility is first and foremost for the athletes. That’s the genesis of this thing.” It should be, those part-reality-tv-stars/part-athletes work their asses off to keep everyone else at UFC employed.
So it makes sense that they have the best of the best, not just for UFC, but for any professional sports training facility. The best in equipment was installed, including an Hypoxic Lab, laser light therapy unit, cryotherapy chamber, hydroworx pool, NormaTec compression units, hot and cold plunges, physical therapy room, sauna and steam rooms, woodway treadmills, force plates, Keiser machines, and an indoor/outdoor track.
High speed high definition cameras will be mounted all over the performance center, allowing athletes to catch instant replays of their work on giant monitors in the gym and they’ll even have access to a full-sized Octagon for practice. “We wanted to provide best in class resources to our athletes,” says Epstein. And now, no matter where in the building or what department you work in at UFC, you’ll, as Epstein puts it, “have the honor to look out and see world class UFC athletes training in this facility. An important reminder to everyone to keep an eye on the product itself.”
According to information given to ENR via a UFC representative, the new UFC building will operate a full-time staff with a multi-million dollar budget under Kimball and have full access to services including the UFC Anti-Doping Policy, Cleveland Clinic’s Professional Brain Health Study, and a slew of athlete-focused programs, no doubt only to expand as the industry grows and changes.
“In short,” the UFC tells ENR, “the UFC Performance Institute will provide athletes competing in UFC access to world class facilities, technology and experts across areas such as sports science, nutrition and hydration, to aid their training and rehabilitation.”
With the NHL potentially on their way to Nevada, Epstein is hoping for some cross-training among athletes.
Says Epstein in the information UFC sent to ENR, “Las Vegas is turning into quite the sports town with the NFL possibly on the way and the NHL on the way [and] we feel like this facility is unmatched both in Las Vegas and around the world...If this thing works out even close to the way we think it’s going to, it will be the greatest investment we’ve ever made.”
