About That New Red Bull Training Facility
With the 2026 World Cup nearly here, Red Bull New York and the rest of Major League Soccer are now on break.
Following the team’s 2-1 win over Sporting Kansas City, RBNY are now 5th in the Eastern Conference and will cease team activities for a few weeks. The next time the team plays an MLS game will be on July 22 when they visit the Philadelphia Union.
Until then, Red Bull II in MLS NEXT Pro or the World Cup can entertain fans. Or they can try watching USL soccer with the New York Cosmos, Brooklyn FC, and Westchester SC.
But I don’t want to talk about that right now. Last month, Red Bull New York unveiled its new RWJBarnabas Health Red Bulls Performance Center in Morris Township, New Jersey. A state-of-the-art facility, sitting on 80 acres of land and featuring eight and a half fields and two buildings dedicated solely to soccer, it might rival something an NFL team uses.
That facility is getting its first real use as the Brazilian men’s national team uses it as a base camp during the World Cup. And overall, it feels like a major step for everyone involved.
Other RBNY media members and I were given a tour of the facility in late April, before it was 100% complete. What we saw was nothing short of a team’s grand vision for the future.
The Specs
The complex sits on an 80-acre parcel of land. It includes eight full-size outdoor soccer pitches, featuring a mix of heated, irrigated natural grass and turf surfaces with one 350-seat match field designated for Academy games. Plus, with a key note to avoid wasting space, an extra half-field is perfect for goalkeeper training.
Outdoor areas are equipped with advanced training technology, including multi-angle camera tracking systems for analytics and player development. Along with the First Team and Red Bull New York II, the RWJBarnabas Health Red Bulls Performance Center will also serve as home to the Red Bull New York Academy and Youth Training programs.
As someone who has been at the current and soon-to-be previous training facility, the difference is stark. The New York Red Bulls Training Facility in East Hanover has something like three fields and multiple disconnected buildings. The difference between the academy and the professional is stark, with academy players using a separate facility on acres of land.
It’s not bad, in fact, it’s still a good facility. But the difference is huge.
Picture this. Instead of two buildings separated across a facility, you have two buildings essentially interlocked.
The main building at RWJ is focused on the professional Red Bull teams, that is, the Major League Soccer first team and MLS NEXT Pro second team. Each team has its own locker room; there are multiple classrooms; and the teams share office space for managers and coaches. The communal areas, gyms, and cafeteria are huge and shared. It’s all interlocked over two floors. Plus, Red Bull global staff have permanent offices should they travel over.
Right across the sidewalk, but technically connected by a rooftop garden on a sky bridge, is the academy building with multiple classrooms and offices, plus locker rooms for each academy age level.
The coolest thing? Every office, classroom, recovery area, and public space has a window. Those windows look out to fields. The professional players all look out towards the fields where the first and second teams practice. The academy area all looks toward the academy fields. The one place where you can see both? The skyway above the academy building, where you get nearly 360 degrees of Red Bull soccer.
This isn’t even talking about the expanded health and training facilities, the nerdy, technical stuff like the size of kit rooms, or the wall of homegrown players in the academy section who have made MLS debuts.
It’s all amazing.
Something Feels Different
Wall of homegrown Red Bull New York players at the RWJBarnabas Health Red Bulls Performance Center in Morris Township, New Jersey, who have made their Major League Soccer debuts (
Earlier this month, the Brazilian Football Confederation selected the RWJ Health Red Bulls Performance Center, officially called Columbia Park Training Facility during the tournament, as its Team Base Camp training site for the FIFA World Cup 2026.
The Red Bulls have hosted international teams at their old facility before. In 2024, Argentina called the old facility home during the Copa América in the United States as its main base camp. The following year, Red Bull Salzburg used the facility during the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
Red Bull is a strange team, frustrating at times in MLS. But the presence and work have always been going on. This new facility feels like a new chapter, maybe even a new book, for the organization. A chance to both create and bring in players. When the calendar switches, these sorts of facilities might be highly attractive to free agents looking to extend their careers or further develop.
Likewise, the young players Red Bull likes to develop can now receive even more training, gain more knowledge, and have more chances to become the next MLS or European star.
When Brazil takes the field to train for the World Cup, that will leave an impact, maybe on some of those players who may consider joining Red Bull Bragantino in Brazil or coming to the United States, then, when MLS returns from its break, and the first team fully moves in, these sorts of facilities may help injured players recover more quickly.
Can this sound like dressing something up? Sure.
But for what it is, the new Red Bull facility might be the first chapter in something huge for this organization.
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Categorized:Credentials News Red Bulls