The debate over instant-replay - and technology in general - in sports is getting quite repetitive and boring. So it makes sense that I'll now give my opinion. Haven't we reached a point where almost all officiating can be replaced by machines/robots? Sure, there are the calls that may require interpretation, such as fouls in some sports, but I can't think of much else that couldn't be covered by robots. I think. I would love to see some of the leagues explore the possibility of severely limiting the roles of officials. Of course, realistically, this won't happen.
Why?
I can think of a few reasons. I believe one of the biggest ones is that people don't like change. Using what must be similar logic in fighting to preserve dated ballparks, some people desire to keep the old, inferior refs instead of considering switching to something significantly better. I think these people are wrong. I'm guessing they're the ones who love the "human element" of officiating. God I am sick of that term. When sports were created, was the human element of reffing even considered? I'm confident that sports were created with the human element of players in mind, not officials. Why would we ever want to accept errors if we don't have to?
Maybe people love being able to complain about sports. If there were no officials, and every call was always correct, fans would have to accept that their teams sometimes just suck. So, in a way, perhaps officials are scapegoats.
Those are two of the reasons why I think technology is lacking in sports. I'm sure there are more. Are any legitimate?
Difficulty of implementation in soccer (being the only sport I care about): obviously there needs to be a human element to call a foul, so the technology of instant-replay causes a problem with the clock -- does time wasted through challenges and viewing instant replay blah blah get added on at the end, do teams start wasting time with fake challenges, is there a penalty for an incorrect challenge etc etc.
ReplyDeleteThere was also talk of putting a chip inside the ball so you know when it crosses the goal line because even refs get that wrong, but then there were all sorts of problems with that.
As much as it would be great to see Ireland instead of France in the World Cup and Maurice Edu's goal for the US stand and all sorts of silly red cards and yellow cards not given, there's not a workable system for technological implementation without changing the flow of the game completely (i.e. why quick free kicks exist). But yeah I hate refs because the best they can ever do is have no impact on a game -- what a weird principle?!?!?
Baseball should definitely go to technology because the game is basically all robots anyway. The only time things happen when they shouldn't is when players make errors. Otherwise you can basically tell what's a single what's a double blahblahblahnotasport.
Also Brian is really tearing it up on the MGMLBPE there are only like four teams that could improve his win% and it wouldn't even be a huge difference! SICK.
I do think it would be awesome to have robots like the one in Saved by the Bell. Those things would rock.
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