16 Teams Battle For Drone Soccer Title At SUNY Poly
Photo credit: SUNY Polytechnic Institute
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Sixteen teams of students aged 12 to 18 are descending on Utica, New York this Sunday for the 2026 U.S. Drone Soccer District II Championship, as Utica Phoenix reports.
Glowing drones. A netted arena. Three-minute sets of full-contact aerial combat. Welcome to the fastest growing youth tech sport in America.
Photo credit: SUNY Polytechnic Institute
What Drone Soccer Actually Is
If you’ve never seen it, here’s the short version. Each team fields up to five pilots, all flying spherical cage-protected drones lit up in team colors. One pilot is designated the Striker. Only the Striker can score, by flying their drone ball through the opponent’s goal ring suspended in midair.
Photo credit: SUNY Polytechnic Institute
Defenders guard their own airspace, block incoming attacks, and can legally ram opposing drones in the process. Yes, intentional contact is part of the game.
Each match runs three sets of three minutes each. First team to win two sets takes the match. If your drone gets damaged mid-set, it gets disarmed immediately and your team flies shorthanded for the rest of that set. Strategy, piloting precision, and fast decision-making under pressure. All of it happening at once, indoors, in front of a live crowd.
Photo credit: SUNY Polytechnic Institute
The sport originated in South Korea and has been recognized by the World Air Sports Federation as an official air sport class, F9A, since 2019. The U.S. version launched nationally in late 2021. It is growing by an average of eight new teams per month nationwide, with New York currently leading the country in growth.
16 Teams, One Ticket to Daytona
Every team in Sunday’s field earned their spot the hard way. Sixteen squads from across New York State advanced through one of six qualifier events to reach the District II Championship at SUNY Poly’s Wildcat Field House. The event is free and open to the public, with opening remarks at 9 a.m. and first matches beginning at 10 a.m.
The field includes multi-year veterans and first-time competitors alike. Mohonasen High School’s Mohon Drones and Madrid-Waddington Central School’s Yellow Jackets bring championship experience.
GST BOCES, home to New York’s largest drone soccer league, enters teams from Owego-Apalachin, Spencer-Van Etten, and Bath-Haverling. Regional programs from Little Falls, Utica Academy of Science, and Citizenship and Science Academy of Syracuse round out the bracket.
Photo credit: SUNY Polytechnic Institute
The stakes are real. First, second, and third place finishers from District II, plus three wildcard teams from New York, will earn spots at Battle at the Beach, the 2026 U.S. Drone Soccer National Championship at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida on May 18 and 19.
Twenty-four teams from eight districts nationwide will compete. The National Champion earns the right to represent Team USA at international competitions sanctioned by the World Air Sports Federation.
Last year’s national title went to Sato Mushu, who reclaimed the crown in a final against 2024 champions Cabrillo Flying Jags, then represented the United States at the FAI World Drone Soccer Championships in Shanghai. The bar is set. District II’s best have a shot at it.
SUNY Poly and the Pipeline That Matters
SUNY Poly isn’t just hosting the event. It’s the U.S. Drone Soccer Association’s designated Northeast Hub, and Sunday’s championship is the result of a real partnership between the university, its engineering college, student clubs, and CNY Drones, a volunteer-run community organization that has been building this program from the ground up.
Photo credit: SUNY Polytechnic Institute
John Reade, SUNY Poly’s Director of Pre-Collegiate Outreach, said the program does something that STEM education often struggles to do: it makes the technical feel genuinely competitive and fun.
Teams don’t just learn to fly. They build, program, and fly using professional-grade, open-source drone technology with direct industry applications. Students can earn their FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot certificate through the program. High schoolers become camp counselors for younger students. The pipeline runs all the way from middle school to college to aviation career.
That’s not an accident. The FAA’s Advanced Aviation Advisory Committee specifically recommended U.S. Drone Soccer as a tool to improve gender equity in STEM fields. Every competitive team must be coed. That rule isn’t a footnote. It’s the first item in the organization’s code of conduct.
DroneXL’s Take
I’ll be direct: this is the kind of story I love covering, and not just because it involves drones.
We spend a lot of time in this community talking about regulations, airspace restrictions, and whether the FAA is going to let us fly within five miles of something. All valid. All important.
But meanwhile, a group of volunteers in upstate New York built a youth drone sports league from nothing, got a university to become a national hub, and now they’re sending kids to Daytona to compete for a national title and a shot at representing the United States on the world stage.
Twelve-year-olds are building their own aircraft, learning to fly under pressure, and thinking about careers in aerospace. That’s the community at its absolute best. Sunday in Utica is going to be a good day.
Photo credit: SUNY Polytechnic Institute