The 5 Reasons Pro Drone Racing Isn’t Popular (yet)
It’s hard to think of any tech development that has gotten more hype in the past year than drones and drone racing. Wired, NYT, Quartz, have all hailed it as the sport of the future on the verge of taking off. The government of Dubai just announced a drone racing competition with a $1,000,000 dollar prize attached to it.
It’s worth saying upfront that I am incredibly bullish about the future of robotic sports and drone racing in particular. I’ve traveled around the country this year to attend a number of races. But this shit is hard. There are some deep, looming questions that hang above it.
1.) What are you rooting for at a drone race?
A hobby turns into a sport when you get fans. Die hard fans. Hundreds of thousands of them. And every sport has a core fandom.
Plenty of pilots are showing up to drone racing events but, despite novelty media attention, in-person and online fans are sparse. The most popular drone race I’ve seen, The Drone Nationals, peaked at a few thousand online concurrents.
Drone racing could eventually command huge in person and online crowds but the questions on fandom are wide open. Do people show up because they are rooting for an individual pilot? An engineer? A team of pilots and engineers? Teams sponsored by a certain brand or website? Pilots from a particular school, city, or country? What will the heroes of drone racing look like, and how do we tell their stories in order to get fans invested in the outcome?
The answer to this question will ultimately define the format of the sport. Most races that I’ve been to have been solo competitions that put preference on the individual pilot (Charpu, Chad Nowak, Mr. Steele) but we’re already starting to see some evolution of the format. At an event recently in Atlanta, the organizers put together a team based marathon. The Drone Worlds, taking place in Hawaii, announced 9 different formats for their event next year. It’s unclear what format, or formats, will eventually take hold with the most fans but the sky is the limit (literally).
2.) How do you make a drone race fun to watch online?
Have you ever watched a drone race online? For all the hype around drone racing in the press, there are few videos online that attempt to capture a race in its entirety.
The video below is one of the most complete races I’ve seen on the web. It’s part documentary, part race coverage, and it comes complete with an endearing British announcer.
The video is well produced; it has motion graphics and multiple commentators, but it struggles to hold attention. You’ll notice that there are plenty of places in the race where there is just silence. The announcer doesn’t know what to say or how to build suspense. “Pro” wrestling would just be two men in leotards dancing in a boxing ring without compelling and consistent commentary.
The most popular drone racing videos online right now are hype clips or documentary style coverage. These are the clips that got me into FPV to begin with but they represent thousands of hours of footage condensed to minutes. Covering a continuous drone race, in a way that puts people on the edge of their seat, will take raw innovation. There are vast technical, visual, and storytelling challenges.
3.) How do you make drone racing accessible?
Drone racing is expensive. A basic fpv setup can easily cost 100x the cost of a setup for many other sports (soccer, baseball, tennis). Those attracted and able to spend this kind of money on this hobby represent a narrow demographic.
But even those who are interested in drone racing and have the money to cover it immediately run into a dense jungle of jargon. It’s intimidating. As Shane Miller mentioned in a post on the Mini Quad Club, his first impression felt like everyone was speaking Chinese. Shane is now an incredible builder and pilot (check out his Instagram) but there are many who drop out. Reducing setup cost and the barrier to entry are necessary to attracting more people.
4.) How do you improve the reputation of amateur drone use?
The overwhelming majority of people using drones are responsible, ethical, lovely people but all it takes is one Cartman.
There are numerous cases where drones have been used to illicitly spy on neighbors, hurt children, or get in the way of putting out forest fires. Isolated events can, and will, continue to do major damage to the broad reputation of consumer drone use.
Drones exist in a vast legal gray area at the moment. In some places like Los Angeles, the government is already enforcing a broad FPV ban. In others, the rules around them are actively being written. If the drone racing community rolls their eyes at these events, laws will get stricter and the broader image of the sport will suffer. Nick Miller of the Mini Quad Club wrote a good message about this recently.
Entertainment and STEM education are a way to push back. You’ll never be able to stop people from doing horribly stupid things with drones but it’s on the community to set standards, call out bad behavior, and continuously find stories that resonate with the press. Yes, drones can be dangerous, but we have to make the case that they’re worth the occasional harm. Football is one of the most dangerous sports in the world but it’s still around because the leagues spends an incredible amount of energy each year maintaining its image.
5.) How do we work together?
This isn’t the first time there has been a bunch of hype about a robotic sport of the future. Over twenty years ago a series of robotic fighting leagues were created. Battle Bots made its debut on Comedy Central while RobotWars and a few others appeared abroad. The shows had a good run but ultimately imploded in legal battles and game design challenges. The format did not evolve and it took over a decade for BattleBots to eventually reappear on TV.
There is an ecosystem forming in drone racing. You have pilots, league organizers, manufactures, and sponsors. If everyone doesn’t find a way to work together this could implode in the same way.
Today we’re excited to throw our hat in the ring. We believe that robotic sports are here to stay but the challenges are unresolved. Drone racing could be what takes hold or it could be something we can’t even imagine yet. Regardless, it’s going to take a wide range of talents to find the format and make it huge. We want to help bring those people together.
We’re starting with a blog. We will analyze developments in robotic sports, create a knowledge base of best practices, and investigate government regulations. Signup for updates here: IRL.Academy.
Have you flown in or organized a drone race? Agree/disagree with some of the points above? Our next post will highlight best practices and pitfalls in more detail. Leave a comment below or message me here: codyvbrown ‘at’ gmail.com . I would love to connect.
