Waves E-Gaming esports arena bought out by Amuka Esports

Canada’s biggest esports and gaming venue just changed hands – Waves E-Gaming was bought by Amuka Esports in its entirety. The facility itself is close to York University in between Toronto and Vaughan, and it boasts some impressive stats.

waves gaming arena amuka esports

© Waves E-Gaming

Amuka Esports’ newest venue

With over 14.000 sq. ft of area featuring over 100 gaming stations, Waves E-Gaming is anything but a small fry. Their setups feature PCs as well as consoles, and they see over 1000 gamers each month.

For Amuka Esports, this is anything but a small purchase – in fact, their CEO Ben Feferman called it the biggest move the company has made so far when speaking about their acquisition.

“Esports is all about community.  We’ve built several great brands that are driving tremendous value, but we needed a physical space to bring them all together.  Waves will not only be the new headquarters for our company but will serve as the community headquarters for Canadian gamers.”

The history of Waves E-Gaming

The biggest esports facility in Canada has been around since 2018, when Ahmad Al Jamal opened the doors to the local community. The venue featured all sorts of facilities, including a restaurant, bar, production spaces and more.

It’s no surprise that Amuka snapped up Waves – worldwide, the demand for esports and gaming venues is only growing. A fair few commercial real estate owners have taken on esports projects in order to breathe new life into abandoned or uninteresting buildings, such as old malls, office facilities, and even storage spaces. There are already esports arenas in the US that followed this principle – along with plenty of purpose-built ones.

A big hurdle here is money – buying the necessary equipment and outfitting the locale with the necessary infrastructure isn’t cheap, and neither are the costs for any structural changes and the redecorating needed to turn old spaces into something that appeals to gamers.

Buying an existing facility like Waves E-Gaming’s venue could just work out cheaper, despite the increased availability of ‘dead’ commercial real estate. With shops dying out thanks to Amazon and co, physical stores are losing much of their appeal – and their spaces are being repurposed.

The new deal

Waves’ acquisition by Amuka is a big move for esports in Canada – and it included more than just the purchase of the facility. Waves co-founder Khaled Sherif will be the new COO at Amuka, in charge of improving the existing Amuka esports portfolio, and for their next big move – hiring a tournament team.

Details about that have yet to be announced, but the company already has stakes in Organised Gaming, Level Six and Mount Phenom. Now with the purchase complete, the venue will be able to host new world-class events – at least, that’s the plan. Community manager Laura Eichhorn said:

“Having a full tournament, content and media team behind us, will be a game-changer for the team.  We’re now rolling out some major events in Smash, Rainbow Six and CounterStrike that will take gaming in Toronto to the next level.”

Read also: Esports Betting in Canada

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