The first of two racing events to be streamed on ESPN occurred recently. The two-day long Drone Nationals, taking place at Governor’s Island, New York, successfully made it to both the organizations live streaming online as well as to appear on TV alongside other sports like softball. The date was, unfortunately, a little awkward, due primarily to the Olympics taking place at the same time. ESPN also has plans to host the second big drone racing event, the Drone Worlds, which will take place October 17-22 in Hawaii. They technically have the right to refuse to stream this second event if they didn’t like the first, but such an occurrence is very unlikely.
This year’s competition was a much larger endeavor compared to 2015. Many more sponsors climbed on board, and attention for the race skyrocketed. This year’s winner was Zachary Thayer, and American who goes by the nickname “A_Nub”. The freestyle event was won by the previous year’s race winner, Chad Nowak.
Scot Refsland, the founder of the Drone Sports Association, has stated that his goal for the sport is to make drone racing into a live spectator sport, an event for friends and families to go out and have a good time. A few thousand people made it out to this year’s event, and many more viewers watched it on ESPN3.
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