Nike on Monday (October 4) unveiled its new 750,000-square-foot innovation centre named after four-time NBA champion Lebron James.

Nike dubbed the new development the rebirth of its original research lab which was started 40 years ago in Exeter, New Hampshire. The lab was used to create and test products to help athletes perform at their highest level.

The new Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) is five times larger than the original, with more than 400 cameras, a full-size basketball court, a 200-metre endurance track, a 100-metre straightaway, body mapping equipment and an artificial turf training pitch to help Nike capture athletes in motion.

Four advanced climate chambers that can adapt to varying weather conditions was also installed in the new lab.

The lab currently sits at the centre of Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.

According to Nike, the construction of the lab is a makeup of over four million pounds of construction debris, diverted from landfills through Nike’s partnership with Waste Management; 70 per cent of the wood used in the buildings make up is from sustainable sources, and 100 per cent is from noncontroversial sources.

The company also boast that the centre will solely run on 100 per cent renewable electricity and features a 322 kW rooftop solar array. It is expected to boost the building’s electricity by about 10%, which will be serviced by wind farms in the Columbia Gorge.

‘I’m definitely honoured’

The centre’s namesake said he was proud to have the centre named after him.

“I’m definitely honoured to be one of the Nike athletes to have a building represent their name,” James said.

“The inside of it and the outside of it, the architecture of it, the story behind it, everything that goes on inside this building is unbelievable. Over the course of my career and my time here at Nike, for all of this to come together is surreal. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to me, but I’m definitely honoured,” he added.

James also took to his Instagram after the announcement to share a series of pictures showing off the inside of the centre to his followers.

“So surreal, like I was literally speechless. All I can say is I’m honoured and I am blessed, wow,” he captioned the post.

What athletes can expect

Matthew Nurse, vice president of the Nike explore team for the lab, said the centre will be one of inclusivity and diversity.

“The NSRL is the epicentre of where we work with athletes of all abilities, all backgrounds, all skills and all sports,” he said.

“Athletes can move here at full speed, full motion — they can just play,” Nurse added.

“In the innovation space, we take information from the NSRL, and we are able to look at different ways to solve an athlete’s problem. It gets extremely interesting,” chimed in Janett Nichol, vice president of apparel innovation.

“In a conventional way of building a product, we would just go straight to a material, get a pattern, sew it, and then that would be it. Here, we can go to anything from biology or chemistry to pushing the limits of a machine to create a very different experience with material,” she added.

James first signed with Nike in 2003 and has since had a very lucrative partnership with the company throughout his career.