League of Legends: Clutch Gaming sells their spot to Dignitas?

After missing the boat for League of Legends franchising, most of us wrote Dignitas off. However, this is not the first time the team has returned to life.

Dignitas is back, baby!

Er, maybe…

See, their parent company – which is related in some convoluted, corporate way to the Philadelphia 76ers — has now become the majority stakeholder of Clutch Gaming. For the cool sum of $20 million, Clutch has been absorbed into the Harris Blitzer brand that is also the parent company of the 76ers.

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Though history is by no means guaranteed to repeat itself, this was the company that Solomon Grundy’d Dignitas back to life going into 2017 Spring.

In other words, there is now the very real possibility that Sunday has rolled around once again and the Dignitas org is ready to pull itself from the marshy ground.

But what does all this mean? I know you’ve all read my article on Dig and the sense of loss weighing in our hearts when we saw their ultimate demise on the doorstep of franchising. League of Legends hasn’t been the same without them, especially since Dig was a legacy organization in the surest sense of the word – forming over 6 years ago during the very first LCS split.

The team had its ups-and-downs, detailed more coherently in the aforementioned (and linked!) article, and went through a gradual decline over the years — originating as a contender for the NA crown, before slipping into good-natured meme mediocrity, before becoming just mediocre.

At the far end of this slump, Dig lost their spot to Team Dragon Knights, spending a split in the Challenger doldrums. They were then purchased by the 76ers for their final run, before being kicked from professional League of Legends by the big-sports brands of Golden Guardians, 100 Thieves and Clutch Gaming.

Now, after a comparatively dismal performance by Clutch this last split (5-13 final record), Dig may have found a new way back into the league.

The thing is, we don’t know.

It’s also possible the organization decides to rebrand as something trendy and new (like the original FlyQuest, which was actually just old Cloud9 and C9 Challenger). Team BugAdventure could be making a beeline for the LCS this very minute.

We don’t know.

After all, many of the newer viewers don’t fully recognize the weight of the Dignitas name, nor the sting of being a fan when the team looked like they could legitimately contend with the pinnacle of North American League of Legends, then seeing the org slowly wither over the years. To the 76ers – or whoever bought the team – this could be a market ripe for rebranding.

Still, there’s enough former Dig fans out there to form a solid platform of Imaqtpie memes and KiWiKiD dongs. There’s no reason to get excited yet, but there’s no reason not to.

So go ahead, ya crusty old Dignitas fans. Dust off your signed copies of Donger Elite, live in the same torn white tee shirt for a week or two, watch the 2013 Worlds hype video and shed a single tear when Scarra throws the keg.

Get excited.

Pumped for the return of Dignitas? Think BugAdventure may steal the spotlight? Tired of this crazy political climate? Leave a comment: nobody else listens to you, but I will!