These are the 5 sports of the future

Sporting events may look a lot different in the future.

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From robot battles to drone races, new games are starting to emerge as a niche, but growing form of entertainment. 

Here are five futuristic sporting events that are beginning to get some attention.  

competitive skydiving
Getty/Scott Olson
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5. Race car driving in virtual reality and in real life at the same time

Two professional drivers raced each other in race cars while wearing virtual reality headsets in December.

The helmets allowed them to race each other in a virtual world, which had obstacles like waterfalls and flying boulders.

There's no plan yet to turn this into a regular sport, which may be a good thing because a lag in virtual reality could have some serious consequences. But we wouldn't count out seeing this again.

You can read more about the race here.

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4. Professional drone racing

The first global Drone Racing League launched last Tuesday and the events are amazing.

The DRL brings elite pilots from all around the world to race drones at speeds exceeding 80 miles per hour.

The drones are equipped with a video camera while racing, allowing the pilots to wear goggles and see the live feed while racing.

"One of the great things about drone racing is it sits between the virtual and the real — it's almost like a video game," Nicholas Horbaczewski, CEO of the Drone Racing League, told Tech Insider.

"The pilots talk a lot about feeling like the drone or sitting in the cockpit of the drone, but it's real life and the drones are flying around," he continued.

The first race will take place February 22 in Miami to launch the season. You can read more about how to view the new sport here.

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3. Giant robot battles

A U.S. company called MegaBots held an international robot battle that they plan to turn into a spectator sport.

MegaBots manufactures 15-foot-tall robots that are piloted by humans.

Over the summer, MegaBots challenged a robot made by robotics company Suidobashi Heavy Industry.

“Our real vision has always been to start a league of these giant robots,” Gui Cavalcanti, one of Megabots' co-founders, previously told Tech Insider. “That has always been the drive.”

We have yet to see the massive robots duel, but it shows the efforts being made to create this new sporting event.

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2. Indoor skydiving

There's an entire sport dedicated to floating around in wind tunnels called "Bodyflight."

Participants try to complete a certain number of maneuvers and flips in a giant wind tunnel.

The performance is judged by a panel of experts and some world-wide competitions are even featured on sport networks like ESPN.

Athletes can participate solo or in teams of up to four people.

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1. Robot soccer

Robots have been competing in full-fledged soccer games as part of the RoboCup World Championship in Anhui Province, China.

The 20th competition will occur in June.

The winner of the 2015 championship was Australia's University of New South Wales team.

 

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