What is Redbull?
Red Bull is an Austrian company that was created in 1987. Drinks from the Far East inspired founder, Dietrich Mateschitz, who came up with his very own Red Bull energy drink and the subsequent brand. Redbull is known to have invested in teams from various sports like F1, football, Rallycross Racing, MotoGP, Ice Hockey, Sailing, Skateboarding.
The Rubiks annual activity in Redbull was created in 2017 for the sole purpose of promoting speedcubing as a spectator sport and including speedcubing into the list of Redbull events. There was mixed reaction when this was first introduced and the speedcubing community was mixed about having red bull take charge of making cubing big.
Red Bull’s history with speedcubing
Redbull introduced itself in the world of cubing in 2017. When it first collaborated with Rubiks, it undermined the WCA body and started off on its own. After the initial friction and miscommunication at first more discussions happened the two bodies understood their boundaries.
This is what happened on 25th October, 2017
“Red Bull announced the Red Bull Rubik’s Cube World Championship. It will be a series of qualifier competitions in specific countries, and the winners will qualify for a final competition in Boston, USA. More information can be found here: redbullmindgamers.com/rubiks
In light of this news we feel it is important to address everyone who works for the WCA, has competed at our competitions before, or is simply interested and supportive of the WCA and what it stands for. There are already a lot of rumors spreading around within our community, and as the leaders of the WCA, we feel obliged to inform you about our view on the matter and our position on the future.
Red Bull has teamed up with Rubik’s Brand Ltd. to create their own speedcubing competitions around the world. These competitions were announced without the knowledge of the WCA and they use different regulations, events and formats. Therefore the WCA will not announce these competitions, and will not recognize the results of these competitions.
Members and staff of the WCA are free to compete in these Red Bull competitions. The WCA will not sanction anyone who wishes to enter the competitions. We will still welcome anyone to our competitions, and will treat everyone equally and friendly. We also expect our members to stay friendly towards any competitor in the Red Bull competitions.
All staff of the WCA are expected to be loyal to the WCA mission and to defend and protect the WCA’s integrity. There is currently insufficient information on the Red Bull competitions to determine whether this is something the WCA can and will support or not. We will inform our staff further once we have more information. For now feel free to ask questions on the delegate group or to the board.
We would like to comfort everyone by saying that the WCA is here for all of you, and we welcome anyone to join us, regardless of age or proficiency in speedcubing. We provide a spectrum of different events and different variants, with the freedom of choice in any brand or puzzle to compete with. We continue to grow, and are set to have more than 1,000 competitions in 2018 worldwide, in around 90 countries. We are also an independent organization, and will work to stay independent.
The WCA is very proud of what it has achieved in more than a decade, and we will focus on maintaining and improving our work. We believe that keeping our goals and missions, and protecting our values is a core necessity in moving forward. As we think that this is not a destination, but rather a journey, we do believe that it is crucial to keep ourselves updated on the current issues and to learn and adjust to the demands and needs of our community.
As a growing organization, we put continuous effort in becoming more professional and achieving a higher quality standard. We are in the final steps of becoming a non-profit organization. We are also looking for companies and sponsors to give all people across the globe access to WCA competitions. Additionally, we are considering the help of external parties which could help us get better and more appealing media coverage and reach out to people outside our community. The WCA will be glad to work with any other party to achieve its goals, if the conditions are right for the WCA and its members.
We are looking forward to further developments. We are proud of the people who contribute to the WCA and we will work tirelessly to represent the WCA and its members.”
Red Bull and WCA collaboration
Pandemic and Online Redbull
The pandemic really pushed cubing to a new horizon. People started competing online. There were events like monkey league, Redbull online qualifiers/finals, Cubing at Home and Cubelelo Speedcubing UnLocked (CSUL) online competitions. A lot of new cubers emerged who got accustomed to online competition first before attending their first WCA competition. As a result, online competition has gained a lot more importance and priority nowadays among the younger cubers.
Conclusion: Cubing becoming a more spectator friendly sport
The last four years have been a game changer for the world of speedcubing with a lot of new innovative ideas being introduced. We have seen bluetooth cubes, spectator friendly stat boards, beginner friendly applications and various outreach efforts from communities worldwide. Red Bull also has its hand in it in making cubing bigger and popular.
The last Redbull cube event was held online on 4th December 2021. Hope to see new speedcubers in future Red Bull events. Till then happy cubing and keep attending competitions!
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About Author
Abhijeet Ghodgaonkar is the current 4x4 Blindfold (single) National Record holder from Mumbai. He started cubing when he was 13 and he has an overall competitive experience of 8 years. His main events are 5BLD and MBLD. He has been developing concepts like letter quads and 5-style since 2017, to make blind-solving events more structured. He has participated in 50 competitions in a total of 3 countries and won 105 podiums with 51 Gold medals, 2 Asian Continental Records, and 3 National Records. He also has a World Ranking of 29 in 4x4 Blindfolded Single.
1 comment
Enzo
The information on ‘What is Redbull’, was incorrect as Rebull is actually made by a thai man named Chaleo Yoovidhya, who first created the drink. It was only sold in Thailand at the time, and then it was Dietrich Mateschitz who came to Thailand and needed an energy drink due to Jetlag. He found Redbull on the shelves, and absolutely loved it, resulting him in becoming and investor and really expanding it and modifying the drink for European tastes then soon after American, and so on. So thats the whole backstory behind the Redbull company.