The fast-growing extreme sport of drone racing will be zooming into New York and onto ESPN3 this weekend when the U.S. National Drone Racing Championships fly into Governors Island.
ESPN’s first-ever drone racing event will be streamed live on ESPN3 and, following each event, will be televised as a one hour special on an ESPN network. The Drone Racing Association signed a multi-year, international media distribution deal with ESPN in April. DRA will be producing the content for ESPN.
The mixed, multi-reality practice known as drone racing is a made-for-TV spectacle that combines pilots competing head-to-head with small flying drones while wearing first-person-view goggles. The sport is currently experiencing an unprecedented rise in popularity thanks to backing from the likes of Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and his $1 million investment and brands like Mountain Dew, who dove deep into drone racing this summer through a sponsorship with DR1 Racing. Thanks to already having a 24/7 channel dedicated to the sport, drone racing is beckoning to become the next big racing sport alongside NASCAR and Formula 1. Friday will serve as its first serious measuring stick.
Dr. Scot Refsland, the chairman of the DRA responsible for the U.S. National Drone Racing Championships coming to fruition, joined [a]listdaily to talk about sport’s landmark day under the sun.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned throughout the months leading up to U.S. National Drone Racing Championships?
Creating any new industry, sport or innovation is more work than you could possibly imagine. But I’m extremely lucky to be surrounded by some very talented big thinkers who’re brilliant in highly ambiguous situations. And because of that, and the spirit of the drone sporting community, I’m honored to play a part in this big historical moment.
How do you sell fans on the idea of this new culture and sport of drone racing?
Currently the wow factor of this sport is when you put on the first-person-view goggles and you experience flying in the drone as if you were in the cockpit. The attraction is the basic human dream of being able to fly freely, and this is probably the closest thing to doing that without really doing it. The real challenge is to translate that into a fan experience, and that’s what Drone Nationals is focused on—creating an engaging experience for fans that involves both the thrill of racing and the sensation of being in the aircraft. The drone racing and drone sports culture is still unfolding, so by next year I’d imagine there’s going to be a whole new set of clothing, style and TV shows all catering to the drone sports culture.
What kind of an experience can attendees expect at the U.S. National Drone Racing Championships? How about viewers watching at home on ESPN?
We’re going to start with something familiar—like the feel and tempo of any traditional broadcast sport—but then add the element of live onboard camera views of the racers. By using leaderboards and onboard cameras on the drones, spectators will be able to not only follow the race like any other racing event, but also see the race from the racers’ perspectives. For attendees, we have several fun things we’re featuring. One is the ‘Aquarium,’ or a plexiglass structure in the middle of the track where people can watch the drones coming at them, and over them.
What needs to happen for drone racing to turn into the next big eSport?
Besides all the standard ecosystem and grassroots support for the sport, there will need to be big brands, and broadcast demand. Drone Nationals is the first experiment into whether non-endemic sponsors have an appetite, and whether there is engaging content for spectators. We’re not expecting to hit it out of the park. Even though drone racing has been growing at an astronomical rate, there are some fundamental performance indicators that need to be met. Having said that, the larger indicators have all been successfully met much faster than any other sport at this point.
How can sponsors like AIG and GoPro further grow the sport of drone racing?
Both AIG and GoPro see that drone sports are definitely here to stay and both partners see that their products and services go hand in hand with us. Both GoPro and AIG are very high visibility brands that touch a much larger synergistic audience. Between the two of them alone, drone sports can be accelerated almost one hundred times overnight to what it currently is.
Mountain Dew recently dived into drone racing, too. How is drone racing a good fit for a brand’s integrated marketing strategy?
Mountain Dew has targeted their brand to the more extreme and active lifestyle, and drone racing fits in well with their brand. It’s really great to see them jumping into the sport, and that means we’ll see more big beverage sponsors very soon.
7-Eleven recently introduced a fully autonomous delivery service. How can drones transform the way industries operate and serve their clients?
The potential for autonomous delivery that we see right now is merely the spear tip. We’re kind of at that point of when the first fax machine was invented, and realized a little later that once we introduced two fax machines working together, we couldn’t live without it.
Companies like Epson are making augmented reality eyewear specifically for pilots. How are other brands getting involved with drone racing? What are the best entry points?
This is probably the most interesting space in drone sports for a number of reasons. I did a talk recently titled, ‘It took me 30 years and 1 drone race to experience true virtual reality.’ I’m a 30-year veteran in the VR space, have a PhD in it, and within the last two years, there have been some massive steps forward. Next year is going to be the transformative year, where new forms of entertainment and technology will explode. Drone racing is set up specifically to benefit from this wave from both a pilot and spectator experience.
How will you measure success of the entire show?
Success has several yard sticks for this event, but our goal is to have all our partners, pilots and fans want more and continue onward with us to the World Championships in Hawaii in October.
What are you looking forward to the most come August 5?
Taking a benchmark of how fast the sport, pilots, fans, brands and the community have grown since the first one only a year ago. I remember saying, ‘Drone Nationals 2015 is like a neutron bomb. It just went off, now we have to wait and see what effect its waves will create.’
Follow Manouk Akopyan on Twitter @Manouk_Akopyan
