With the owners of Formula 1 as investors and sponsors like Google, the Drone Racing League fills up NBA stadiums, is broadcast on the first NBC channel and sells its own merchandising. “I started because I liked photography,” explains Espua, the only Spaniard.
A Spaniard competes at LoanDepot Park in Miami, a stadium with a capacity for 36,000 fans. His performance could be seen yesterday on the first channel of NBC before Saturday Night Live. And the official shirt with his nickname on the back can be bought for 44.95 euros, with shipping anywhere in the world. What does he do? He is not a baseball player, or a basketball player, or an American football player, or an ice hockey player. He is not a boxer, nor a soccer player, nor a tennis player, nor an MMA fighter. He is one of the best in the world in a sport that did not exist 20 years ago, nor 15, nor even 10: he is a drone pilot. He is Marc Espua, nicknamed Singu, the only Spaniard in the Drone Racing League (DRL), the Formula 1 of these devices that in a short time has reached incredible audiences: the last season was seen by 20 million viewers. Yes, yes, 20 million viewers.
The DRL was born seven years ago and at first it was a small, very small competition, but between last year and this year it has become something really serious, comments Espua hours after they were broadcast on television, YouTube and various platforms plus the Finals recorded days ago in Miami. Among the 12 qualifiers, six for the semifinal, three qualified for the grand final and he finished fourth in his round, that is, he was on the verge of achieving the maximum. Nothing serious. For me, for now, it’s just entertainment. They cover my trips and expenses, but I don’t receive a salary, explains the pilot, although the trips already have value. At the moment focused on the United States, the DRL has passed this course through the stadium of the San Jose Earthquakes of the MLS or the pavilion of the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA.
- How did you arrive at a phenomenon of this caliber?
- I started out of pure curiosity. I liked photography, five years ago I took a drone piloting course and one of the instructors told me about this type of racing. Until then I knew nothing at all. But I was hooked very quickly. He had a Mavic [uno de los mejores drones para fotografa] and hardly used it. I am from Barcelona and whenever I could I went to Sabadell, to train at a model airplane field. He also practiced a lot at home with the simulator and one day, in 2019, in a competition he won a ticket to the World Cup in Turkey. I finished second, he introduces me and later, over time, they called me from the Drone Racing League.
In a recent interview for the AdAge medium, the creators of the DRL commented that their fans are technology experts, that many met the competition on Tik Tok [tiene 5,4 millones de seguidores, los mismos que la King’s League], that 70% of them do not follow any other sport and that the challenge was always to attract those who have never flown a drone. That’s why you don’t need to know anything to watch the races. In fact they are really intuitive. Sitting in a room in the middle of the track, the pilots control drones of different colors and take them between obstacles, going up and down until they reach the finish line in less than a minute.
It is a show between Formula 1 and eSports. The devices fly at incredible speed, collide with each other, crash into obstacles… all illuminated with the necessary LED lights to provoke an attack on anyone over 30 years of age. It’s pretty cool to see. People picture that we fly a photography drone, but these are very different. The motors are much more powerful, the battery is high discharge… there is no point of comparison. These drones defy the laws of gravity, they go at 260 km/h, they make a few turns at 20G, a person could not be inside”, explains Espua, who is studying Computer Engineering at La Salle and who is still not sure if next year continue on the DRL.
Just finished this season, it is not known how the competition will continue to grow in the next one. With Liberty Media, the company that owns Formula 1, as an investor and sponsors of the size of Google, T-Mobile and even the United States Air Force, there will continue to be macro events, but the simulator business is very sweet. In fact, some DRL races are held from home, with virtual reality glasses and through the metaverse, and its own video game, Drone Racing League Simulator, from Epic Games, is a success. I don’t know how far the DRL will go, but it will be interesting to see. In Spain we don’t have competitions, I hope they will come at some point, concludes Espua, one more university student in the Barcelona metro on any given day, from time to time a star in a stadium in the United States.
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