The world’s first standalone UFC GYM Jiu-Jitsu studio opens in Manhattan.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu gets a new flagship today. UFC GYM Jiu-Jitsu // Jiu Livre opens today, Saturday, August 8 at 383 Fifth Avenue, Floor 3, in Manhattan, becoming the first location in the world to operate under UFC GYM’s new standalone studio model dedicated exclusively to Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It is the launch site of an entire franchise concept, placed deliberately in one of the most active and competitive BJJ communities on the planet.

For readers of this site, the story carries a second layer worth naming plainly. Jiu Livre was co-founded by Santiago Amaral and Jarbem Pacheco, and Amaral is also the founder of BJJLink. Amaral now sits at both ends of this launch. The academy he built with Jarbem is the founding partner of UFC GYM’s flagship studio, and the software company he founded is the official operating system for every new UFC GYM BJJ franchise studio worldwide under a multi-year agreement between UFC GYM and MMA.INC. The digital infrastructure and the physical flagship converge, today, in the same Manhattan mat.

Adam Sedlack, CEO of UFC GYM, framed the Manhattan launch as both a market statement and a model statement.

“Bringing UFC GYM Jiu-Jitsu to life in New York City is an important step in how we expand the brand,” Sedlack said in the announcement. “We’re meeting the demand for high-quality Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instruction in one of the most passionate and engaged Jiu-Jitsu communities in the world. Our partnership with Jiu Livre allows us to pair authentic and trusted local experience with the scale, structure and global resources of UFC GYM. Launching our first dedicated studio in Manhattan reflects both the significance of the market and the momentum behind Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. A city of strivers meets a sport built on problem-solving.”

That last line is the one worth keeping. It also describes the partnership structure underneath the launch, which is the genuinely clever part of the model. Jiu Livre retains its identity and continues serving its existing members as the UFC GYM curriculum and member experience are introduced around them. The global brand is not replacing the local academy. It is scaling it. The academy keeps its name on the door, its coaches on the mat, and its community intact, with UFC GYM’s structure and resources layered around what already worked. Athletech News, covering the launch, identified exactly why that matters as a blueprint: partnering with respected local academies gives UFC GYM a route into dense, discerning markets without attempting to build every city’s coaching staff and community from scratch. Jiu-jitsu communities are famously loyal to their academies and sceptical of corporate arrivals. Leading with an established local room, its coaches, and its culture is how a franchise concept earns a market like New York rather than merely entering it.

The software layer is where the MMA.INC thread runs deepest. BJJLink was selected last year as the official gym management platform for all new UFC GYM BJJ franchise studios, a multi-year SaaS agreement supporting a rollout that targeted 45 new locations in its first phase and integrates with the Warrior Training Program subscription across a network of more than 150 UFC GYM locations worldwide. Membership management, payments, engagement, and the operational rails of every studio in the concept run on the platform Amaral founded. Today’s opening is, in that sense, the first physical flagship of an ecosystem MMA.INC has been building digitally for years: the software that runs the academies, and now a founding partnership in the room where the model proves itself.

The timing could hardly be better calibrated to the sport’s moment. Brazilian jiu-jitsu is in the middle of the strongest growth run in its history. UFC BJJ, the promotion’s live event series, is eleven events deep and heading into a September card headlined by a Musumeci superfight. The Craig Jones Invitational reset expectations for what grappling events can pay and draw. ONE Championship is building out its own submission grappling title structure. Participation at the academy level has climbed alongside all of it, and the demand Sedlack referenced is not marketing language. It is visible in every waitlisted fundamentals class in every major city. What has lagged behind the demand is exactly what this concept addresses: scalable, high-quality instruction infrastructure, delivered through rooms that feel like academies rather than gym chains.

New York is the right proving ground precisely because it is the hardest one. The city’s BJJ market is dense, competitive, and sophisticated, stocked with world-class rooms and students who know the difference. A flagship that wins there validates the model everywhere. That is presumably the point of opening at 383 Fifth Avenue rather than somewhere gentler.

Today’s opening marks the start of that test. For UFC GYM, it is the launch of a new growth vehicle. For the sport, it is another data point in a boom that keeps compounding. And for this company, it is a milestone with names attached: the academy Amaral and Pacheco co-founded on the door, and the software Amaral built behind the desk, together in the world’s first UFC GYM Jiu-Jitsu studio.

The mats open today.