SM GROUP-BACKED National University (NU) is putting up the country’s first sports academy in Laguna at a cost of P1 billion, a son of the country’s richest man Henry Sy, Sr. said.

NU Chairman Hans T. Sy — the man known for leading the turnaround for the once-maligned university sports program — told reporters on Monday, that the facility, which will be operational in 2018, will serve as a training center for up-and-coming athletes as well as local and foreign professional teams.

“The whole study is there. We are starting to get architects. We have foreign consultants. We want to bring it up to international standards,” said Mr. Sy, who is also president at the family’s real estate company SM Prime Holdings, Inc.

The facility will initially offer training on basketball, volleyball and tennis and more sports will be introduced in the coming years, the official said on Monday.

“It’s just not really going to be sports itself. We felt that is something we should go into because we want to have sports development but at the same time, how about these athletes? What happens to them after their prime years? We want to be able to give them certain education,” Mr. Sy said.

The sports academy is a sole undertaking of NU, but the school is open to partnerships once the facility is completed.

“I’m happy that the board approved it, the siblings approved it, because this is something that we believe can help the country not necessarily in terms of sports development alone, but it would be able to [help] put away drug issues,” Mr. Sy said.

National University was founded in the year 1900 as Colegio Filipino. It received university status in 1921, prompting a change of name from National Academy previously,

Since acquiring a majority stake in the Sampaloc, Manila-based school in 2008, the Sy family has turned perennial cellar dwellers NU Bulldogs into champions, with the men’s basketball team ending a 60-year title drought in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines tournament in 2015 and the women’s volleyball team dominating the Shakey’s V-League conference in the same year.

The Sy family owns SM Investments Corp., the holding firm of the SM Group of Companies, which has core businesses in retail, banking and real estate. 

The family also has interests in gaming, geothermal energy and infrastructure.