A look into UFC’s new campus and performance institute — VIDEO
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin really thought he was embracing technology when he started having someone film his sparring sessions in the gym on an iPhone.
He could have never imagined anything like the organization’s new Performance Institute, which is set to open as part of the UFC’s new corporate headquarters in southwest Las Vegas later this year.
The two-story, state-of-the-art facility will be free to use for all current and retired fighters. Media was invited to tour the facility in progress this week.
In addition to all the latest tools for workout and recovery — from treadmills to hot and cold plunges to cryotherapy chambers — the area will be outfitted with technology to measure output and record training sessions for instant video analysis from multiple angles.
Griffin, who is now a vice president of athlete development for the UFC, helped design the facility from an athlete’s perspective. He believes fighters will be thrilled with the results that can be achieved.
“Every other sport does (these things),” he said. “It’s time to evolve the sport. That’s training your brain without beating it up and that’s very important.”
The performance center includes a boxing ring and mixed martial arts cage for training sessions on the second floor and an indoor/outdoor track downstairs.
UFC officials don’t see the facility as a place for fighters to train full time. Instead, they will likely spend a week or two during a fight camp or while rehabbing from injuries.
“We did a lot of research talking to the athletes and unequivocally this is something the athletes are going to utilize,” UFC COO Lawrence Epstein said. “But one of the things we want to do is for them to bring their trainers here as well so they can bring these latest and greatest techniques and technologies back to their gyms as well.”
Epstein said many training facilities throughout the world were visited in an effort to collect the best ideas possible to incorporate into their building.
He cited the Manchester City soccer club as a model from which many of the ideas for the UFC headquarters were borrowed.
One of those concepts is that many of the windows around the facility will have views of the workout areas so that staffers from ticketing to marketing to public relations can see the athletes in action, similar to the Manchester City offices that look out onto the practice field.
The corporate headquarters, located between Jones and Rainbow boulevards on the north side of Rafael Rivera Way, will house the entire staff of the company that has spread to several buildings on Sahara Avenue over the last two decades.
Construction began in early 2016 before Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta sold the company to Hollywood conglomerate WME-IMG, but construction continued as planned.
The performance center is the crown jewel of the campus.
Epstein believes in what the company has created.
“We spent a lot of money on this and if it works out anywhere close to as well as we hope, it will be the greatest investment we’ve ever made,” he said.
The new UFC headquarters, which takes up approximately 184,000 square feet on a 15-acre parcel, is set to open in May.
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-277-8028. Follow @adamhilllvrj on Twitter.
