Once upon a time, drone racing was an underground sport. Enthusiasts connected through message boards and met up in fields, parking lots or other open spaces to race. Now it’s a sport with its own entity, the Drone Racing League (DRL), which has drawn over 50 million viewers in its first two seasons.
DRL CEO & Founder, Nicholas Horbaczewski, won’t stop at a handful of viewers. The goal is to continue expanding globally (they already broadcast in 75 countries) and reach everyone who’s interested. A large part of doing that will be through their new global partnership with BMW.
Officially welcoming @BMW to professional drone racing as a 2018 DRL Season Sponsor: https://t.co/rZBJA4A6YI pic.twitter.com/ir5ugHnEce
— Drone Racing League (@DroneRaceLeague) March 14, 2018
“BMW is a company with a strong heritage in auto racing and also, you know, a strong track record of innovation on the technology side,” explained Horbaczewski. “They’re a great fit with DRL and obviously tap right into the speed and excitement of the sport.”
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The partnership isn’t just about slapping a BMW logo on one of DRL’s high-flying drones. On July 28, DRL will host the Allianz World Championship at BMW Welt. Located in Munich, Germany, the state-of-the-art facility houses everything BMW has to offer.
Said Horbaczewski, “we had a partnership with BMW and the culmination of that partnership last year was some branded content where we came in and flew some drones around the Welt, produced some exciting content that was both drone racing and BMW-specific, and it really grew from there.”
Not only will they use BMW’s facilities, they’ll take advantage of their auto-racing acumen as well. DRL has set out to break the Guinness World Record for fastest racing drone on Earth with some help from BMW. Having already set the record last year with the DRL RacerX, Horbaczewski thinks BMW is the perfect company to help them break it again.
“They have a wealth of knowledge on improving the aerodynamics on different kinds of vehicles and we got one now where we designed it last year and we brought a tremendous amount of power to it and the next innovation is going to be one that really takes into account the aerodynamics portion as it flies.”
For an iconic brand like BMW, this partnership represents an opportunity to reach a younger audience. And they get in at the ground floor of a sport that has potential to be the next global racing phenomenon.