Sky Puts $1 Million into The Drone Racing League

LONDON: Sky has invested $1 million in The Drone Racing League (DRL), and has inked a distribution deal that will see the competition come to the newly launched Sky Sports Mix channel.

In addition to Sky’s investment, Sky Sports has signed a distribution partnership with DRL to bring live events and broadcast content to the U.K. and Ireland. Airing as ten, one-hour episodes, the 2016 DRL season covers five races, including a winner-take-all world championship to crown the best drone pilot. The broadcasts will air from this October on the newly launched Sky Sports Mix channel.

Sky Sports and DRL will also team up with London & Partners to bring an official DRL race, the first professional drone race in the U.K., to an iconic venue in London.

Emma Lloyd, the group business development director at Sky, said: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with DRL to help develop this exciting new sport. The investments we make are all about driving innovation, and ultimately improving the Sky experience for customers.

“We’re really looking forward to working with the team at DRL to grow the sport and to bring something completely different to audiences across both TV and digital.”

DRL’s CEO and founder, Nicholas Horbaczewski, said: “This is an incredibly exciting day for DRL. Our team has worked tirelessly to develop the technology, racecourses, and sporting rules needed to deliver the most elite, competitive, and thrilling drone racing league on the planet. We can’t wait to share it with fans around the world.

“Having a distribution deal and strategic partnerships with Sky will bring DRL to tens of millions of viewers. With their expertise and our industry-leading technology, media production and development of the best competitive racing, we believe we can truly grow a global franchise around this futuristic, high-speed racing sport.”