A Campus That Keeps Growing
When the UFC purchased a building in the southwest Las Vegas Valley in 2017, the plan was modest by the standards of what the company would eventually build there. A training facility for fighters. A production space for smaller events. Something functional that served the business without requiring the kind of real estate ambition that defines Las Vegas’s casino corridor.
Nine years later, the UFC owns approximately 70 acres just north of the 215 Beltway between Jones and Rainbow boulevards. The headquarters is there. The Performance Institute, one of the most advanced athlete training facilities in combat sports, is there. And the Meta Apex, just unveiled this month after a major renovation that expanded the event floor by more than 20 percent and pushed seating capacity from roughly 175 to nearly 1,200, is there. About 35 acres remain undeveloped.
UFC senior executive vice president and chief operating officer Lawrence Epstein, speaking to the Las Vegas Review-Journal on August 10, 2026, outlined what comes next: “We’re currently in the process of developing a master plan for this facility, which will include hopefully a lot of things, including a hotel, expansion with our TKO partner WWE, maybe additional collaborations with other sports and entertainment organizations here in Las Vegas.”
Dana White was more direct about the scale of the vision. “More than the expansion of the Apex, you know, we’re going to do a master plan here,” White said. “And there’s going to be, you know, it’s going to be like our own little city here is what we’re going to end up with. Hotels and, you know, much more.”
What the Meta Apex Renovation Revealed
To understand where TKO is headed, it helps to understand what just happened at the Meta Apex. The facility’s renovation wasn’t cosmetic. The event floor grew more than 20 percent, from 12,000 to 14,500 square feet. Seating capacity increased from roughly 175 people during early fight nights to nearly 1,200. Two state-of-the-art kitchens were added to allow concessions to be sold. A grand entrance was added to improve guest flow. LED screens on the east and west sides of the Apex were increased in size.
The facility has also been rebranded as the Meta Apex, reflecting a technology partnership with Meta that White described as focused on improving both the live event experience and television production quality. The naming matters because it signals TKO’s ambition to position their Las Vegas campus as a technology-forward entertainment facility rather than simply a combat sports venue.
White reflected on the facility’s evolution: “The evolution of it has been interesting because it’s not what it was intended to be. Take the risk at the time that we took to buy this building and start to renovate. It all couldn’t have worked out any better. COVID changed everything and here we are with a new arena in Las Vegas.”
The COVID pivot is worth dwelling on. When the pandemic shut down traditional venues in 2020, the UFC used its Apex facility to produce Fight Island events and a continuous run of cards that kept the promotion operating while every other major sports league was dark. The facility became both a production necessity and proof of concept for what a purpose-built combat sports venue could do when the external environment forced innovation. The Meta Apex renovation is the peacetime expansion of something COVID necessity built.
The WWE Dimension
The most significant new element in TKO’s expansion announcement is the inclusion of WWE in the Las Vegas campus plans. TKO Group Holdings, formed in 2023 through the merger of Endeavor’s sports properties, owns both UFC and WWE under a single corporate umbrella. The two brands have collaborated on events, cross-promoted talent, and shared infrastructure at specific moments since the merger. But a shared physical campus in Las Vegas would represent something more permanent.
WWE recently held WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas, bringing the company’s biggest event to the city for a second consecutive year. WrestleMania at Allegiant Stadium for back-to-back years established Las Vegas as a legitimate permanent home for WWE’s flagship event, not just an occasional destination. A campus presence would anchor that relationship into something structural rather than booking-dependent.
WWE’s current developmental operation remains in Orlando, Florida, where the Performance Center hosts NXT programming and developmental talent training. No specifics have been shared about what a WWE facility on the TKO Las Vegas property would actually look like, and Epstein’s comments stop short of confirming any relocation of the Performance Center. But the directional signal is clear: TKO wants WWE physically represented in Las Vegas alongside UFC, and the 35 undeveloped acres give them space to build whatever that looks like.
The precedent for cross-brand use of the facility already exists. NXT Battleground was held at the then-UFC Apex in June 2024, marking a direct cross-brand collaboration between WWE and UFC at a TKO-owned venue. Moving from a one-off event collaboration to permanent facility integration is a different order of commitment, but the operational relationship has already been demonstrated.
The Hotel Piece
The hotel component of TKO’s master plan deserves attention as strategic signal rather than just amenity. A hotel on the UFC/WWE campus transforms the property from a professional facility that visitors leave after events into a destination where visitors can stay, train, and engage with combat sports culture continuously.
The model has precedent in sports. Major sports organizations have built hotel infrastructure adjacent to stadiums and training facilities to capture athlete accommodation, fan tourism, and corporate hospitality revenue. The Dallas Cowboys’ Frisco campus includes hotel facilities. Football academies in Europe often include on-site accommodations. What TKO is describing, a hotel adjacent to a combat sports training institute and event arena, follows this template while adapting it to Las Vegas’s specific hospitality economy.
A hotel on the campus also creates a different kind of fan experience than the Strip properties offer. Someone staying at a hypothetical TKO hotel could watch a morning training session at the Performance Institute, attend an afternoon UFC Apex event, and have dinner at a venue built around combat sports culture, all without leaving the property. This immersive model is exactly what Las Vegas’s entertainment economy has been building toward across multiple sectors, from the Sphere’s all-encompassing concert experience to Area 15’s attraction-and-dining ecosystem.
The Las Vegas Sports City Thesis
TKO’s campus expansion doesn’t happen in isolation. It is one piece of a broader reconfiguration of Las Vegas’s identity from entertainment-first to sports-first that has accelerated dramatically over the past decade.
The city now has the Raiders at Allegiant Stadium. The Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena, fresh off their third Stanley Cup Final appearance. The Aces, three-time WNBA champions and playoff bound again in 2026. The Athletics beginning play at their new Strip stadium. The Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix scheduled for November. NBA expansion decisions expected by year end with a $7-10 billion expansion fee in play. And now TKO planning a 35-acre sports entertainment campus that could eventually include a hotel, a WWE facility, and additional sports organization collaborations.
White acknowledged the competitive landscape among Las Vegas arenas directly: “When you think about the arenas in Las Vegas, you got the T-Mobile, Allegiant, MGM, and other ones.” His implicit point was that the Meta Apex and the broader campus represent a different category of venue rather than a competitor to the existing arena ecosystem. T-Mobile hosts the Golden Knights. Allegiant hosts the Raiders. The Meta Apex hosts UFC. These venues don’t directly compete for the same events because they serve different scales and formats.
The 35 remaining acres create room for TKO to grow into uses that aren’t fully defined yet. White’s reference to “additional collaborations with other sports and entertainment organizations” leaves the door open for partnerships that haven’t been publicly discussed. In a city where every major sports and entertainment organization is simultaneously expanding and competing for space, talent, and audience attention, a well-located 35-acre parcel under unified TKO ownership represents significant optionality.
The Regulatory and Community Context
Southwest Las Vegas has been developing rapidly, and TKO’s campus sits within a broader growth corridor that includes residential development, retail, and infrastructure investment. The area’s evolution from semi-industrial to mixed-use sports and entertainment raises standard planning questions about traffic, infrastructure capacity, and community integration that will shape how the master plan develops.
A hotel on the campus would require hotel-specific zoning and potentially design review from Clark County. Additional event capacity beyond the current Meta Apex footprint could trigger traffic impact assessments. These regulatory steps are normal for development at this scale and don’t represent barriers that TKO couldn’t navigate, but they shape timeline and design in ways that the current announcement doesn’t address.
The partnership with Meta on the facility name and technology integration also raises questions about what that collaboration actually entails operationally. Meta has been investing in live sports technology, including spatial audio, augmented reality viewing, and social media integration at live events. If the TKO-Meta partnership extends beyond naming rights into actual technology deployment at the facility, the Meta Apex could become a showcase for sports broadcast technology innovation that serves TKO’s television production ambitions.
Notes for Stakeholders
TKO’s Las Vegas campus expansion plans offer insights for anyone working in sports real estate, entertainment development, or destination strategy:
Owning underlying real estate gives sports organizations optionality that venue tenants can never achieve. TKO’s ability to develop 35 acres according to a master plan of their own design is structurally different from the position of organizations that rent arena space from casino operators.
Cross-brand synergies within holding company structures create facility-sharing opportunities that competitors cannot replicate. UFC and WWE sharing Las Vegas infrastructure under TKO ownership achieves economies of scale that independent organizations would need to negotiate contractually.
Hotel integration transforms event destinations into immersive sports campuses. A hotel on the TKO property captures accommodation revenue, extends visitor stays, and creates the kind of continuous engagement environment that sports tourism increasingly demands.
COVID-driven operational pivots sometimes produce permanently superior business models. The Meta Apex’s evolution from a modest production space into a nearly 1,300-seat arena happened because pandemic necessity forced innovation that peace-time planning wouldn’t have prioritized.
Master planning 35 available acres creates long-term optionality in a supply-constrained real estate market. Land adjacent to a developed sports campus in a growing city typically appreciates faster than comparable undeveloped land, giving TKO both current development flexibility and long-term asset value.
What Gets Built Next
The master plan that UFC COO Lawrence Epstein described is in process, not complete. The hotel component, the WWE facility, and the additional sports organization collaborations are directional ambitions rather than approved projects with timelines and budgets. What happens next depends on master plan completion, regulatory process, capital allocation decisions within TKO’s corporate structure, and the ongoing negotiation of exactly what WWE’s Las Vegas presence would look like.
What’s already clear is that TKO has 35 acres, a successful existing campus, a renovation that just proved the Meta Apex concept at larger scale, and explicit corporate intent to build something that Dana White described as “our own little city.” Las Vegas has seen ambitious development announcements before, and some of them have stalled. But TKO has already built and proven the first phase of this campus when nobody was sure it would work. The second phase has a foundation under it that most Las Vegas development announcements lack.
Key Takeaways:
- TKO Group Holdings, parent company of both UFC and WWE, announced plans this week for a major expansion of its 70-acre Las Vegas campus just north of the 215 Beltway, with approximately 35 acres remaining for development
- UFC COO Lawrence Epstein confirmed the master plan will explore a hotel, WWE facility, and additional sports and entertainment organization collaborations
- Dana White described the long-term vision as creating “our own little city” on the property, with hotels and significantly more development than currently exists
- The announcement followed the unveiling of the Meta Apex, a renamed and renovated version of the UFC Apex with event floor expanded 20% to 14,500 square feet and seating capacity increased from roughly 175 to nearly 1,200
- Two state-of-the-art kitchens, enlarged LED screens, and a grand entrance were added in the renovation, which also established a technology partnership with Meta
- WWE’s inclusion in campus plans follows back-to-back WrestleMania events at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and a previous NXT Battleground event held at the UFC Apex in 2024
- WWE’s developmental Performance Center remains in Orlando with no confirmed relocation, but TKO’s announcement signals intent to establish a permanent WWE physical presence in Las Vegas
- A campus hotel would transform the property from a professional venue visitors leave after events into an immersive destination where fans can stay, train adjacent, and engage continuously
- The expansion positions TKO’s Las Vegas campus within a broader city-wide sports investment wave that includes the Raiders, Golden Knights, Aces, Athletics, F1 Grand Prix, and pending NBA expansion
- The master plan is currently in development with no approved timelines or budgets announced for specific components
