Canada’s Amuka Esports acquires iRacing top team High Performance Motorsports

On Thursday, Amuka Esports officially announced their acquisition of High Performance Motorsports, the deal being brokered between Amuka Esports’ Chief Executive Officer, Ben Feferman, and Nicholas Morse of High Performance Motorsports.

Feferman takes full control of the entirety of High Performance Motorsports (HPM), now under Amuka’s banner, while Morse moves to the Managing Director role for HPM and Daniel Roeper remains as HPM’s Team Principal.

Amuka Esports is a traditional discipline esports organization based out of Toronto, Canada, and High Performance Motorsports, an iRacing team with years of influence in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series, agreed to the terms of the acquisition, and the value is believed to be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

“We feel the eNASCAR series has the potential to be the next top tier e-sport,” Feferman said. “Many non-endemic sponsors don’t understand the traditional MOBA or FPS games, but everyone understands the basics of racing. We see a huge opportunity for HPM to be leading the charge in bringing new sponsors, partners, and fans to the racing ecosystem.”

According to AngelList, Amuka Esports’ estimated value is over $1,000,000, and earns roughly $50,000 to $75,000 a month in revenue across their two arenas based in Toronto and Windsor. Amuka recently closed an equity round, raising $432,280, plus they already have brand partnerships with RedBull, Ubisoft, Zowie, Unikrn, Seagate, Corsair, and other well known brands.

The two entities started conversing during the COVID–19 pandemic, in which the NASCAR Cup Series stars competed on live television on iRacing while real world racing was temporarily halted.

“Amuka had seen iRacing on FOX,” Morse told The Racing Experts, citing the eNASCAR Pro Invitational Series race between Denny Hamlin and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. at the virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway. “A couple of weeks later, I got an email from Ben, saying that they had been watching this on TV, and they had wanted to get involved. After a few months of conversations, we finally got to a point where Amuka wanted HPM to be a part of their ecosystem of teams and organizations that they compete with in Canada and the United States, and around the globe, and we’ve gone from there.”

High Performance Motorsports most recently competed as an affiliated team in the iRacing Pro Series in 2019, fielding four cars with sponsorship from Total Advantage. In the 2019 season, HPM successfully graduated longtime eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series driver, Brian Schoenburg, as well as upcoming competitor, Eric Smith, back into the top ranks for the 2020 season.

The immediate future for the new High Performance Motorsports under the Amuka Esports banner is to prepare for the 2021 sim racing season, but their long term plans are inclusive of the entire Motor-eSport community, including aspirations of competing officially in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series.

“Amuka wants to be in iRacing,” Morse said. “It’s a discipline they are interested in, they see the value in it. Amuka has gaming centers across Canada, and they want to expand into the United States. This is a discipline that they not only want to bring to their customers, but also to their corporate partners. We have requested a charter (in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series), and we’re waiting to hear back on that,” said Morse.

“This is a big win for HPM, and also a big win for iRacing. It’s fantastic that our community is getting more notoriety across all gaming platforms… It’s a big splash in sim racing from a big esports organization outside of traditional first-person shooters and tournament gaming.”