Esports organisation Dignitas has officially opened a training, content, and media facility in Newark, New Jersey.
The 3,000 square-foot facility is located adjacent to the Prudential Center, a sports and entertainment arena that’s owned by Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment – the parent company of Dignitas.
In the facility is a 500 square-foot content studio that’s sponsored by broadcasting platform Caffeine, with live streaming and recording pods and a café. The building will also act as the training facility for the organisation on the east coast, housing its teams in League of Legends, Rocket League, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Super Smash Bros., SMITE, Clash Royale, and Apex Legends.
Michael Prindiville, CEO of Dignitas discussed the facility in a release: “This new facility drives to the heart of where Dignitas is moving as a leader in the gaming centric entertainment: with a heavy focus on player excellence, influencer development and content production that will drive key narratives across the confluence of esports, sports, music and pop culture. Newark is the perfect place to develop the next wave of competitive gamers and entertainers – a notorious hotbed for talent, adjacent to a Top 10 arena in the world, just 15 minutes from midtown Manhattan, and extremely close proximity to East Coast servers, establishing headquarters here was a no-brainer for us.”
The organisation announced a multi-year partnership with Esports Entertainment Group, the company behind esports betting platform VIE.gg., earlier this week. Select teams under the brand will promote VIE.gg through a jersey sponsorship and social media.
Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment officially acquired LCS franchise Clutch Gaming earlier this month. This move means that Dignitas will make its return to the League of Legends competition in 2020 following a rebranding of the franchise, but until then it’ll operate the team through the Summer Split.
Esports Insider says: 2019 seems to be the year in which mammoth companies that operate within esports open up facilities to accommodate their teams and players. While Dignitas’ facility doesn’t appear to be as all-encompassing as Complexity’s GameStop Performance Center, it looks great and will seemingly serve a few worthwhile purposes.