Transcript

Rapid Response: Tapping a new generation of consumers, w/The Drone Racing League's Rachel Jacobson

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The drone racing lмі. Drone racing property, so fastest drones in the world, and the most elite and skilled pilots in the world. It's a net new audience. They are younger, and if you are not planning for the future. demos that are gonna be your customers, your clients, you're gonna age out really quickly. Every day it's like first aerial sport you can bet on, first race in the metaverse.

We're on a pitch call and they're like, we wanna do a drone race on the moon. We spoke to NASA about that, and like I'm putting banners on the moon. That's Rachel Jacobson, president of the drone racing league. The six year old league, which mixes real life racing and esports like simulations Reaches 250 million households across the globe, from the US to China, and boasts two and a half million TikTok followers. One of the largest sports franchises on the platform.

I'm Bob Safian. Former editor of Fast Company, founder of the Flux Group, and host of Masters of Scale Rapid Response. I wanted to talk to Rachel because as technology accelerates the blurring of lines between industries, New non traditional businesses are emerging. Drone Racing League is part sports, part entertainment.

with elements of crypto and blockchain. Betting and the metaverse. And it taps into an emerging new generation of consumers that Rachel calls tech setters. When partnering with both Draft Kings and NASA are equally practical as they become for DRL, you realize that the possibilities spawned by new tech are just beginning. There are lessons for all of us in the drone racing league story.

About keeping our eyes open and moving quickly. About exploring what may at first seem absurd. And in Rachel's case, about jumping headlong into making futuristic ideas into reality. I'm Bob Safian and I'm here with Rachel Jacobson, president of the drone racing league. Rachel's coming to us from the DRL offices in Manhattan as I ask my questions from my home in Brooklyn.

Rachel, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. I first came across The drone racing league in Twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, when I was the editor of Fast Company, we ended up citing DRL

As one of our most innovative companies. There's this phenomenon that had started out with hobbyists racing their own drones and had grown into this high tech sports league with races and fans around the world. I I remember it kinda blew my mind that it even existed. Since then

DRL has grown. NBC and Twitter media partnerships on Weibo in China, commercial partnerships that span T Mobile and DraftKings and Algorand. You came aboard two years ago. right at the start of the pandemic. And I'm eager to get into how you responded to that challenge and the scale efforts you put in place. But I'm curious.

How did you first come across drone racing league. I mean you'd spent Twenty one years at the NBA. Working alongside legendary commissioner David Stern. I can't imagine that drone racing was likely your aspiration, unless you're a drone pilot yourself. How did you get connected to this world?

The drone racing league had been a five year old property. And really had just had incredible growth. Our CEO and founder Nikolas Horbachevsky. Nick had an idea in a backyard when he was flying his own drone. And to his credit. He took this sport to a number of investors that saw what he wanted to build.

The next Multi billion dollar mainstream sport. When you talk about David Stern. I had met with David in the fall of twenty nineteen. And I had really left the industry three years prior. To help run an HR tech startup that was all about investing in women and diverse groups. So

David had talked to me, he was investing in a lot of early stage technology companies. And he said, We gotta get you back to sports. The industry has changed. And I'm not sending you back to just one of the other sports. that are out there. So really it was David putting that on my radar, and literally a month later, I was approached to meet with the founder.

Nick of DRL. And really from that first meeting with Nick, He talked to me about the sport he had now grown in five years. his vision for the future You think about building a

Multi generational fan base How you look at social and digital media. So I really felt like he had me at hello, and it moved pretty quick to the altar. When you talk to Nick That first time. H you sine

A drone racing league. Competition? I have twelve year old boy girl twins, so you better believe drones are a hot topic. I had seen some of the Twitter streams. I knew that it was a sport really made for this next generation, but I did not have the sophistication, all of the elements, how the pilots qualify who the partners were. I thought about

A tech driven global sport that had so much opportunity. For those listening who aren't As familiar with drone racing league, I wanna try to describe it. There's a season that's televised on NBC, includes a series of races. Some in real life IRL using tangible

physical drones that go zero to ninety miles an hour in like a second. And then there are virtual races like eSports or video games. Operated by the same pilots. Using the same gir and controls. Also televised.

And the pilot leaders across these Combined races Compete For a championship. Do I have that about right?

Am I describing that the right way? Yes, you have all of that right. The drone racing league is the world's premier. drone racing property. So fastest drones in the world that we hand build with our brilliant engineers that are on the third floor in our office on 27th Street here in New York City. And the most elite and skilled pilots in the world, they don't just do it in real life, they also do it On our DRL sim, which is the most true to life eSports.

Racing game. So think about MBA two K or Madden. This is how people fly and race drones. in the video game world. So yes, we run a season that tips off in the fall. It concludes late February this year, and then we are a twelve month property.

Because there are so many other events that we are doing year round to qualify pilots. To do Epic drone content stunts and capture. And then we just hit two and a half million people on TikTok. So we have a ton of social and digital. Now you've got a championship coming up.

Semifinals on February fifth. Finals on February twentieth. Although actually that's when the races air on TV because the races themselves took place back in January. In Las Vegas, right? You were there for that, so you know who won. Can you tell us like what was it like to be there for the championship races?

Well I'm not gonna tell you who won because we want everyone tuning in, but I was there. I was live. In Vegas Looking out on a spectacular

Course. That we had set up during the first night of CES. You have the Vegas community that had never seen a live drone race, and then we had. Top tier talent with Weezer performing a post-race concert. So it was really this intersection of sports. Entertainment. Technology

So it was epic. And it's an interesting format. That you have the delayed part. And I'm curious about it,'cause isn't betting Part of the sport.

Partly allowed. Like how do you do betting when Some people are Watching it way later, or is the only betting going on at the time of the event itself. So betting for us was a new vertical. I um come from a horse racing family. I think I was at the race track at five years old with my grandparents.

Being at the NBA and having Adam Silver as someone who was very outspoken and progressive about legalizing sports betting. I saw this kind of several years in the making before it got approved in twenty eighteen. So from the time I was hired, I started asking, can you bet on drones? And we hadn't stood up a betting opportunity for our fans. Ar sport straddles

The live to air and the post produced. So when you talk about the race in Vegas. That wasn't a race you can bet on. But the sim racing that we do that's live to air to bet. you can bet on. So really half of our season we take bets on. The other half is a post-produced show that looks a little different. And as you can imagine, we're moving as quick as drones over here. to put on our roadmap.

The in person live to air events as well that you can bet on. So you joined DRL just as the covet lockdowns were imposed in the spring of twenty twenty. I said yes to the job. Five days before the pandemic hit, I was in the city with Nick, March 11th or 12th, I think it was that weekend.

They were canceling sports and everything else. meeting an entire team over Zoom and trying to run a company during such uncertain times. There was no playbook there for what Nick hired me for, but I definitely put my head down. You Quickly jump to capitalize on the the sports desert that had kind of descended in those early lockdown days.

Which proved pretty impactful. Did you Reach out to NBC? Did they reach out to you? Like how did it come together that the virtual drone racing became something that was so quickly

Part of the plan. As the pandemic unfolded. Yeah. So NBC had been great partners of ours. But our season was not starting until the fall.

They had a void in programming. We had pilots around the world. That could Compete on our sim. So we really worked together on putting together a two to three month programming slate. Іно мбіці was in dier straits.

They looked at all these other sports that had been canceled. We do all of our production, so we were ready to dive in. We set our pilots up in there. Basements or their living rooms with all of the tech. So we can air this. You also launched some research about the DRL audience.

Which is surprising in some ways, this audience, unique. They're not traditional sports fans. Or esports fans, most of them. But they exhibit a lot of the traditional fan characteristics. And you call them.

Tech setters. Can you explain What that means. So yes, we have dubbed them tech setters. This was the most comprehensive research study that DR had done.

There's a lot that we knew on the surface. They're young, they're tech savvy, they're early adopters, but I wanted the data. And really what we found out is They just don't follow traditional sick and ball. They don't care how far Tom Brady throws a pass. But they love

technology and they are really invested in what the future looks like. They love spід. And we dubbed them tech setters because they are Really guiding this next generation. They want to know the next iPhone that's coming out or the coolest gadget. Yeah, and I can hear the business case here that DRL is a way to reach this sort of

new, young, passionate demographic that's maybe not available through other sports leagues. Definitely during COVID, it was very evident that marketers and companies really took a beat. To look at where are we spending in our portfolio? And what a lot of companies found is there was duplication.

And that's really where we had this opportunity by showcasing our fan base and really educating so many people. That didn't know, Bob, to your point, like Tell me more about drone racing. It was Very fertile ground because it's a net new audience. They are younger, and if you are not planning for the future.

demos that are gonna be your customers, your clients, you're gonna age out really quickly. When you've built substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position. The upside is real, but so is the risk, and knowing when to act isn't always obvious. Creative planning works with business owners to build a strategy around concentrated equity. When to diversify, how to manage tax risk, and how to protect what you've spent years.

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That is human centered. I'm Rana El Calyubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in.

Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely for From Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. Before the break, we heard drone racing league president Rachel Jacobson talk about real life racing versus sim racing, her unique tech center fan base, and why NBC leaned in when the pandemic hit. Now she goes into crypto's role in the sport.

What makes DRL different than her old perch at the NBA and a potential race on the moon? Plus Rachel shares her biggest lesson since joining DRL. That sometimes not analyzing all the details before taking action can be an advantage. DRL is this unusual mix of sports.

And tech. And gaming. You've talked about it as an omnichannel sports league. That's not a phrase that um familiar with. What does it mean to be an omnichannel sports league? Well

We've entered crypto. We looked really early on when crypto started to heat up. in the sport world of where did our demo sit? And they love crypto. So there's a great overlap. So when you think about An omni channel, we really cut across all of those areas.

А топ тір глобал спорт пропорті. Entertainment. Best content capture digital social and now crypto. It is this multi faceted organization and that's really where you get the omni channel from.

And I guess ideal for the hot area of the metaverse. You better believe it. How do you think about building An audience for something that's so new and so different.

Great question. So TikTok. All right. Two and a half million in really the last I don't know. Sixteen months.

I already have two of the big five in our rear view mirror and we are Head first to get to be in the top three of the most followed. of any of the global sports property. It is absolutely in our sights and achievable. But we have to put the right content. Out on that.

channel to make sure that people want to follow us and engage. If you were in Vegas There was something for you. Whether you were fifteen years old, thirty, or sixty from the racing to the talent. to the mint your own NFT in our activation space. And that's how we think of it is we want to be one of the most inclusive sports. I have my mother to remind me of that.

When she tells me she's tuning in, you can't forget about her demographic and she has her Favorite pilot, which is Gab. Seven o seven. She thinks he is fab. And that you also have a DRL Academy STEM program. So our Dr L Academy similar to

Other sports find their lane of what's really authentic to them. Well stem is very authentic to a drone racing league. We talk about middle school being one of the last best chances. To get people interested and excited, and we've partnered with Steve Gwosniak's. Ваз ед

А з роботифі, а на роботи спис. We are building curriculum to get kids excited. They don't have to be a championship drone pilot. They don't have to code as a full time job. But the fact that they can Grow up in a world that it's not just the traditional types of careers that maybe you and I grew up in. is really an area that we are focused on inspiring

This next generation and starting with making STEM programs fun and cool. And getting some of their favorite athletes and performers to be part of that curriculum. What do you think of the NBA's tech efforts? Today. I mean, from game tracking, player health, digital collectibles, like The Hotshot marketplace.

Do you keep in touch with your former NBA colleagues? Do you like Share and trade ideas. Definitely, definitely you better believe that we are trading notes. I got to DRL. I had a number of MBA team owners love what we were doing, wanna figure out how to get involved. We also have MBA players that fly drones.

as well as other sports leagues. So there's been some really nice crossover there, and it's no surprise that the NBA continues to Take such a leadership role with technology. And I look at A number of things that they've done, and then I look at our drones, and our drone is the ball. But the difference between our drones are I can partner with a lithium battery company or a 5G network.

or a cloud computing company and our sport literally can run on their product. So that is something very much on the roadmap. For twenty two and beyond of How we use these top technology companies. To really reimagine where our sport goes in the future and to have those companies as part of the growth trajectory. Do you miss the NBA?

I don't. It's so different from what I was doing at the NBA, but I love it. Like I love the NBA for different reasons. It's almost like I've had the best of both worlds, as I say, but The excitement I have for where this sport will go.

I see it through the eyes of my twelve year old twins, where Their kids are gonna grow up in a world that you talk about I root for baseball, like this is my favorite drone racer, like. We will be part of that vernacular. For us every day, it's like first aerial sport you can bet on. First race in the metaverse.

We're on a pitch call and they're like, We want to do a drone race on the moon. I call Nick and I was like, Nick, drone race on the moon. He's like, Yep, we spoke to NASA about that. You go sell it, and like I'm putting banners on the moon. Are there lessons that you feel like you've learned as a leader since joining DRL in the last two years that you'll carry with you that others listening might learn from I definitely feel like

During covid you didn't have the luxury to do the analysis on a lot of things. before you had to execute. En offentims so much analysis is done and you miss the moment, but it's just

The way a company is wired to make sure that there is sign off across the board, that you've thought of every angle in turn. It was the first time I would say I was. In more of an uncomfortable space. Uh making decisions

Without All of the analysis before we had to hit go. And it worked out in our favor. And what I told the team is Everything's not always gonna go right.

But we're going to put ourselves out there, and when it doesn't go right, we're gonna learn from it. So The learning that I'm gonna take is oftentimes we want perfection or excellence. And what we found is if we waited for Those two things to happen, we were gonna miss the boat.

And the fact that we brought our sim cup. on NBC During the pandemic. And we gained a ton of more fans. that we double down on our social and digital

All of those pivots that we made, again, without all of the data and analysis. I don't regret any of that. It really has given us this incredible momentum heading into this year that might not have happened. If we slowed down a little bit. So yeah, you are going to see a lot of big news. coming out of our twenty two, twenty three, and beyond.

Well, Rachel. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Masters of Scale Rapid Response is a wait what original. The show is recorded remotely using sanitized audio gear.

I'm your rapid response host, Bob Safi and host for Masters of Scale is Reed Hoffman. Our executive producers are June Cohen and Darren Triff. Our supervising producer is Jay Punjabi. Our producers are Jordan McCloud, Christina Gonzales, and Marie McCoy Thompson. Our music director is Ryan Holiday.

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