Geek sports: Video games, fighting robots, drone races, more

There’s been an increase in activity lately in the U.S. in digital sports, ranging from competitive video game tournaments to robot races. I figured it was time for a quick roundup on the subject.

E-sports

Competitive video game matches for cash prizes have become a big business with tournaments around such games as “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” and “Dota 2” from Valve and “League of Legends” from Tencent-owned Riot Games.
Activision Blizzard and Take-Two Interactive Software are trying to move e-sports to the next level as a professional sport with city-based teams for their games.
Activision is setting up the Overwatch League for its sci-fi shooter game “Overwatch” and Take-Two is developing the NBA 2K e-sports league with the National Basketball Association.

Roborace

With the development of self-driving cars, it was only a matter of time before people wanted to race them.
Roborace is developing a driverless electric car racing series. To date, the organization has been doing technology demonstrations, gaining partners and sponsors (such as Nvidia and Michelin) and developing the sport.

Drone Racing League

The Drone Racing League (DRL) describes itself as the premier, global drone-racing league.
A DRL drone recently received the Guinness World Records certificate for fastest ground speed by a battery-powered remote controlled quadcopter (179.3 miles per hour).

Aerial Sports League

Another drone racing organizer, Aerial Sports League, claims to be the global leader in drone sports entertainment and media.
Its events have attracted over 500,000 spectators in the past two years.

BattleBots

BattleBots is the original robot fighting league and has its own primetime show, most recently airing on ABC. Reruns are now airing on the Science Channel.

MegaBots

MegaBots is launching an international sports league featuring giant, human-piloted robot combat. To hype the league, U.S.-based MegaBots challenged a Japanese robot team to a duel. That battle is expected to take place soon.
MegaBots wants to make the mecha of science fiction a reality, and then fight them in arena combat.