The University of Southern California (USC) officially opened its new Bloom Football Performance Center on Wednesday, marking the completion of a $225 million capital project that includes the football-only facility, a new baseball stadium, and a women’s soccer and lacrosse field.
The three-story, 163,000 square-foot Bloom Football Performance Center serves as the centerpiece of the project, replacing USC’s previous training facilities. The building was funded in part by a $50 million donation from philanthropist and alumnus Ronald H. Bloom and his family, with USC raising an additional $175 million through other contributions. The university aims to secure an additional $20 million to finalize the project.
Key features of the new facility include:
- Player development spaces on the first floor, dedicated to experience and skill-building.
- Game preparation and team connection areas on the second floor, including meeting rooms and collaborative spaces.
- Coaches’ offices on the third floor.
- Advanced recovery technologies, such as float beds, infrared therapy beds, sleep pods, AI-powered massage chairs, and zero-gravity chairs.
USC head football coach Lincoln Riley described the facility as “magical” in a press release, emphasizing its impact on player recovery and program development. “The recovery for the players in this building is off the charts,” Riley said. “The ability we have from the number of people we can recover via all different types of modalities at the same time is exponentially greater than anything we’ve ever had before.”
The Bloom Football Performance Center is the second-largest capital project in USC Athletics’ history, following the $315 million renovation of the LA Memorial Coliseum.
Origins of the project
The concept for the Bloom Football Performance Center originated in late November 2021, when Riley sketched initial plans on a napkin during a flight to Los Angeles for his introductory press conference. At the time, USC’s existing facilities were widely regarded as inadequate compared to other top college football programs. Riley later stated that the university’s immediate commitment to the project was a critical factor in his decision to accept the coaching position.
“That was a little bit, in that moment, my way to test how committed SC was,” Riley said. “This honestly was probably the biggest test of commitment for, ‘How invested are we to get this program back?’ When that was met with no hesitations, that was a pivotal part of me taking this job.”
Nearly five years after Riley’s napkin sketch, the Bloom Football Performance Center has been completed as part of USC’s broader athletic campus expansion, which also includes Dedeaux Field (baseball) and Rawlinson Stadium (women’s soccer and lacrosse).