The UFC held a ground breaking ceremony in Las Vegas yesterday to launch the construction phase of their new UFC Campus which will officially begin in January of 2016.
The new facility will cover 184,000 square feet with 30,000 square feet of that being devoted to a two story Athlete And Performance Center that will include an Octagon, boxing ring, mat space, indoor sprint track, Olympic lifting platforms and a media center.
In addition to that it will also feature consultation and treatment rooms, a physiotherapy and rehabilitation gym, as well as performance technology and sports science areas.
All fighters will have access to the the center for free, and the hope is that having a world class facility like this on the UFC’s doorstep in the fight capital of the world will help them improve their athlete’s performance, and perhaps most importantly combat the frequent injury issues that have often disrupted both the fighters ability to compete, and the organizations plans to put on the best fights possible at any given moment.
“It’s really about the athletes’ overall health, and what we found over the years is that, unfortunately, mixed martial arts training, in our opinion, just hasn’t evolved as training has in other professional sports,” UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta said at yesterday’s ceremony. “We need to make sure that we’re teaching, and that all of our athletes have the ability to see new training techniques firsthand so that they can not only perform better, but hopefully help prevent injuries and really have a facility no different than any other major professional sport has. It’s a place where they can come and either train or rehabilitate themselves, and it’s just another example of us investing in our athletes and investing in the future of our sport.”
Other buildings within the campus will include office space for over 360 staff and a multimedia center where the UFC’s production team will be able to create new content.
The construction process is expected to take around 15 months, with the campus expected to launch in the summer of 2017.
