Saudi Arabia launches first national drone racing league

Saudi Arabia now has a domestic drone racing ladder, and it begins with students. Drone Champions League and Tuwaiq Academy unveiled the Saudi Drone Champions League on May 13 in Riyadh, billing it as the kingdom’s first national drone racing competition and building it around a format that starts online, moves through head-to-head playoffs, and ends with a live final at LEAP 2026 on August 31 in Riyadh.

The structure matters as much as the launch. Pilots will enter virtual qualifying rounds in DCL’s mixed-reality format, where they can make unlimited simulator attempts and keep improving their best time until the cut is set. That is a sharp break from the exhibition-model events that have often defined drone racing in Saudi Arabia so far. It gives university racers a repeatable training ground, a clear competitive pathway, and a national final that feels earned rather than staged.

DCL is leaning on Tuwaiq Academy’s network to make that pathway real. The academy reaches more than 40,000 students across the Kingdom, and DCL says university students from more than 20 institutions will compete in the new league. The winner does not just take the title. The top finalist will also get the chance to race against the DCL World Champion, a prize that instantly links the Saudi series to the sport’s global benchmark and raises the stakes for every qualifying run.

The league also arrives on top of a broader buildout. On January 29, DCL said the first major milestone in its Saudi partnership with Tuwaiq Academy was the opening of the Tuwaiq Drones Hub in Riyadh, a center designed for FPV pilots, students, and enthusiasts. A day later, Minister of Investment Khalid Al-Falih inaugurated the Drones Club at Tuwaiq Academy, with the stated goal of developing national capabilities in drones. Tuwaiq’s scale gives the project unusual reach: the academy said it had graduated more than 32,000 trainees and placed 80% of them through its job-fair program, while its site says it has recorded more than 2,260,755 registrations across camps and programs.

Saudi Arabia has already hosted major international drone events, including the DCL Super Final 2023 in AlUla and the Drone Racing World Cup in Riyadh in January 2025, when more than 140 pilots entered and 64 racers qualified on the final day. The difference now is cadence. The new league turns Saudi drone racing from a series of standout showcases into a domestic system with a venue, a student pipeline, and a repeatable season, giving the kingdom a fast track from isolated spectacles to a sustained racing scene.