Digital growth strategies at Drone Racing League

Abstract

A new venture—Drone Racing League—was the first, global drone racing championship. The Drone Racing League was considered a new type of sports, mixing elements of traditional racing sports and eSports. The case is situated in 2019, in between the venture’s third and fourth year of operations. During the first few years, the Drone Racing League focused on setting up the physical events and making media productions of those races in an accessible and exciting way, incorporating video game elements. In addition, the Drone Racing League had put a lot of effort into developing a true-to-life simulator, which not only made the sport broadly accessible, but was also a way to recruit pilots for the real physical races. Most recently, the Drone Racing League had announced an autonomous drone racing platform, which would start in a simulated environment in early-2019 and be brought to the real-world later that year. Since its inception, the Drone Racing League had focused on developing a co-creation ecosystem consisting of fans and gamers, traditional and emerging (social) media platforms, and companies from various industries with strong brands.