Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) recently unveiled their brand new 15-acre, 184,000-square foot campus that will house all company employees, as well as the innovative Performance Institute for all fighters on the roster.
Aside from being able to drop in at any time to get some training in, athletes will be able to get medical care and rehabilitation at the facility, which UFC president Dana White explained to Laura Sanko during the first-ever UFC Athlete Retreat in Las Vegas, Nevada, while providing some of the campus luxuries available to all fighters.
“If you look at the way people have always trained in combat sports, we haven't evolved like the sport has evolved as far as training goes. What we did is go around the world and look at some of the best facilities and took little pieces of all of them to create what is now here for these athletes. Everyone of our athletes is welcomed to train here. If they get injured, they can come here and we have a facility for them to rehab and get better. Nothing has ever been done like this in combat sports history. Even in other sports, I think this is the best facility in the world.”
The cost of the new facility came in at an estimated $12 million.
As for as UFC’s partnership with Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) — a New York City-based hospital with a well-documented and lengthy history known for its expertise in orthopedics and rheumatology — CEO Lou Shapiro -- says it’s all about improving fighters’ health issues as they’ve been known to do for other major sports stars.
“HSS is just an organization that takes care of people who have orthopedic and related problems and we have a reputation for being the best in the world at what we do. At HSS, we are really proud of what we have accomplished and we take partnerships very seriously and we only partner with organizations who share our values for being the best in the world at what they do. And we are really excited about helping those who participate in this sport and stay active in what they love to do.”
The grand opening of the institute comes almost a year after the promotion was sold by ZUFFA to WME-IMG for a whopping $4 billion in one of the biggest transactions in the history of sports.
To learn more about the UFC Performance Institute click here, and to catch up on all the happenings surrounding the UFC Athlete retreat click here.
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