Slashdot Mirror
Replacing Sports Referees With Technology?
dividedsky319 asks: "There have been numerous instances in which fans of a sporting team blame the loss of a game on the refs. Yet, nowadays, technology could replace a lot of what referees do. A sensor in a baseball could determine a ball or a strike. Same with a tennis match, the ball is either in or out. A sensor in a football could determine whether the ball moved forward 10 yards for a first down. Why hasn't this happened, yet? Obviously not all calls can be determined by technology, but it is feasible for certain instances. What would be the ramifications if something like this WAS introduced, and why has it taken so long?"
So, how old is the phrase "photo finish," anyway?
The human factor of umpires that are failable make the game. Despite a few who are dishonest, most officials try their best to be fair, even when it is against the team they want to win.
I don't want to see robots play sports. In theory (the Jetson's universe) watching robots play is just a case of waiting to see who's bearings wear out sooner.
Now in amateur sports a robot ump would be nice. When it is just me and someone at my level on the racquetball court it would be nice to have something that knew all the rules to tell them to us, not to mention call violations where neither of us know that rule. However I cannot afford to pay for a device to call racquetball games, nor could I afford membershim in a gym that would have it.
Since these are specator sports, it is not so much about right and wrong calls as it is about keeping the game interesting. If you don't have any bad calls to complain about, they you have to accept that your team lost because they weren't as good. As long as there are bad calls you can believe that your team had a chance, and you'll keep coming back to see their chances play out next week.
By keeping the human element in the officating, we keep the games interesting. You want to keep as much to talk about as you can... entire industries are created around this (Sports Radio is a major one).
You could run the whole game as a computer simulation, but it wouldn't be as interesting.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -- Homer Simpson
FIFA is using a radio chip so the ball can say it scored a goal, in a football game (the sport you play with your feet).
1 384236,00.html
This is an early announcement:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,
They did use it for the Sub-17 World Cup, last month in Peru.
They refuse to use video, because they say it goes against the spirit of the game.
spelling?
Yeah. It's just not "traditional." You can pour millions of dollars looking into hi-tech ways to improve the players performance and whatnot, but if it doesn't appear on the surface to be the same old game consumers won't buy it. Supposedly.
Direct away from face when opening.
Tennis considered this about 10 (?) years ago and rejected it. Both players and administration agreed that the human element was part of the game and they wanted umpires, even with their bad calls (everybody makes mistakes, even the players). In baseball they have a Questek system for balls and strikes but it is used to judge the quality of the umpires (performance review monitoring by the admins) rather than for live action calls. Humans, and their mistakes, are part of the game.
I do not think that we should be replacing referees with technology... there will always be things that are subjective, and that require a human intelligence. For instance, the modern sport of fencing is heavily dependant upon technology for scoring -- there are springs on the end of weapon, and fencers wear conductive clothing to help judges determine if a person has been hit or not. However, someone is still required to determine who had right-of-way, and should be awarded a point.
:)
I do not think that you will ever be able to replace referees with computers -- there is too much in sport that requires subjective judgements. In baseball, did the batter step into a pitch in order to get a base, or was he trying to avoid getting hit? In horse racing, did one jockey intentionally jostle another, or not (and remember that horse racing gave us the phrase "photo finish" -- one of the first examples of technology in sport)? In hockey or football, was a certain action within the acceptable bounds of contact, or does it warrant penalty?
Additionally, technology is fallible. For instance, it takes a fair amount of work to keep a foil in order. Springs have to be able to take a certain load; wires break; blades break; screws get lost; and all of these things cost money to replace. I would imagine that the same would be true of any technology. Just how much of a beating can a sensor take before it is useless? How much would it cost to put a sensor in every baseball used in a game? How long would a sensor improved football last? And, would it really be worth it? Sure there are some games that are won or lost on controversial calls (see the White Sox, last week). However, is it worth the cost of putting a sensor in every baseball, when it is only going to really matter once in ten thousand pitches?
Anyway, fans love to hate officials
Rhapsody in Numbers
because we like to see them judged by humans; it lends us the sense that we are wiser than machines. But it's changing, they use cameras, RFID chips for marathon runners (Thank you rosie, we now have 'rosie chips') so i think that as long as we have PEOPLE supervising the tech involved, we'll be a lot more comfortable. If it's announced by a person, it's still a human game.
Besides... if we could replace the ref with a robot, what i want to know is, how soon can we replace some of the players?
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
Discussion about referee's decisions is part of the magic of sports.
Also, introducing technology runs the following risks:
- amateur sports will become too expensive
- professional games will become too slow (IIRC, this is the reason that American football, which is not known for its aversion of long breaks during play, limits the number of times one can call for a technology-assisted review of an empire's decision)
OTOH, in tennis, the electronic line judge has not (yet?) led to such problems.
It's a game damnit. What's the fun in a computer saying, in it's best mac text-to-speach voice, YOU ARE OUT.
And the fun of fighting with the ref. I think baseball is boring, but it has some of the best ref' fights. I love it when the ref throws out the coach. What's the coach going to do to the computer? Spit on it?
And when I'm sitting around on the couch, watching a game, and we aren't all for the same team, it's great to fight over if the ball was in or not.
I can see the water fountain conversations the next day. "Hey, did you see that call the computer made? Well, it must have been right, but I sure didn't appreciate it!"
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
I'm not a sports nut, but one did give me this advice one time when I asked the same question:
1) There is a players union that requires that referees be humans with certain salaries.
2) To a sports nut, the human referees are just as much a part of the game as the coaches. Replacing the referees with machines would be like replacing the players with machines.
That's what lets me, in my comfortable easy chair, forget about the bad things I can't do anything about.
If people were constantly stuck in oh-my-god-the-world-is-a-bad-place mode, would the world be a better place? Not likely.
><));>
Eventually technology will replace refs. Maybe once it's 100% infallable, maybe before then.
Soon enough technology will replace everything...including you and whatever it is you probably do!
Patience my child! Mwuuuhahahahahaha!
long before electronic voting machines do. It's a sad commentary on what American's view as vitally important to their well-being.
Yelling at "incompetent" referees is half (or more) of the fun of sports!
Shades of Grayden
There's something perversely appealing about the image of a stadium full of robots watching a game played by robots, refereed by robots. Particularly if one assumes that these are simply programmed robots and not artificial lifeforms, it reaches literarily absurd levels of meaninglessness.
Depends on how well educated the worriers are. For instance: worriers who are educated are much less likely to shop at Wal*Mart, a corporation directly responsible for poverty in China and low quality employment in the United States (see latest JibJab cartoon).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Similarly, in football (American-style), an couple of sensors can determine whether the football was advanced ten yards or whether it broke the plane of the goal line, but you'd need an army of them to determine whether a runner was down by contact before fumbling, when a play ended exactly based on halting a runner's forward progress, whether a penalty like roughing the passer or holding or pass interference occurred. Computers aren't well suited to judging human behavior, so it may be difficult for them to determine whether to determine whether a foul was "flagrant," a player deserves a red card vs. a yellow card. If human beings are still necessary on the field of play in order to make judgement calls, then why bother bringing in technology in the first place?
Now, there are some avenues in which technological innovations could improve officiating. I generally like the use of instant replay in sports, and think systems like the NFL and NBA have in place (that in essence leave the mundane calls to refs on the field, but make video review available for important plays or last-second shots) work well, but they can only reduce, not eliminate bad calls. I think embedded sensors in a few places on the playing field could offer a trove of useful information for making calls- for example, if there were a sensor embedded in the dirt in front of home plate that checks for the ball making contact with the ground on strike three, that Pierzynski play in Game 2 of the ALCS may have been called differently. Or maybe not. The more electronic technology you put on the playing field, the more likely it becomes that a call gets screwed up due to something like low sampling rate in a sensor, transient electromagnetic interference, or an error in a computer program. Besides, as other posters have already pointed out, the occasional disputed call is a part of sports themselves- and we get far more to talk/argue about from blown calls than for perfect ones.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
One thing I am complaining about, with and without beer is the frame rate of cameras. Why use 24/30 fps? Did we learn nothing from bullet time? Bump that up to about 100fps, certainly doable. Why? how many times are calls flubbed because a tennis or baseball moving 80mph? A receiver moving a foot to damn fast?
Also what about the chains for football, that is all dog & pony. You're gon'na sit there and tell me that a guy trotting down the field holding a chain is better than GPS? I know the ball placement is more art than science but not measuring distance.
Fastrax was dumb but the idea of cameras following the puck autonomously was freak'n cool and highlighting against the close boards was ok just not a good as a talented director switching camera angles. The other highlighting was ugly and annoying.
I'm still not understanding... Anyone help me out? What is this... "Physical activity"?
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
Hockey officals use video extensively to assist them, not to replace them.
If a goal is disputed, the goal judge watches the video (usually from several angles) and decides if the goal is valid or not.
Sometimes a ref misses a call and the game goes on, but the player is punished after officials had a chance to review the tapes.
We're all forgetting here...we've been using technology in sports for decades! Sports have always been caught on tape. That process has been fine tuned pretty well all this time. I conceed that they could up the frame rate (as mentioned above). But come on; look at the progress since Mikey Mantle's day, when all was black and white and the score board on the bottom of the screen was just a group of white letters and numbers. Now we've got the little fox logo with the animated chart that shows you the entire game's situation.
I say, there's no need to introduce new "technology"--sensors, blah blah--just apply what's already working. Videos. I say much can be discovered based on a simple video replay. Even in full motion. How often does ESPN show you a throw to first that realy does beat the runner even though the runner is called safe.
The rules of Baseball do not say, "The runner is out if the umpire perceives that the first baseman had the ball first." They rule that a runner is out when the first baseman is actually on the bag with the ball before the runner.
I think that the fact are more important than the umpires perceptions. It will lead to closer adherence to the rules, which will make sports purer.
Baseball tried something similar. They decided a few years ago that they'd use a computer system (Questec) to "grade" umpires' strike zone accuracy, and then tie the grading to personnel decisions.
, 00.html, and an inside view from an operator at http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?arti cleid=3326 (not sure if this is a premium article, if you can't get to it sorry)
The system works by lining up tracking devices/cameras around a predetermined zone. Big problem. The strike zone is defined "from the bottom of the batter's knees to the midpoint between his shoulders and belt as he stands in a habitual crouch." This varies from batter to batter, it varies by the batter's stance; it can't be predetermined. Even instantaneously, it's a judgement call when a 90+ mph pitch is passing by. Then there's the matter that the strike zone is meant to be called as the ball goes over the plate. The strike zone isn't a plane at the front of the plate like many casual fans think. It's a solid volume floating above the pentagonal home plate. When pitchers are throwing good curveballs and sliders, that's very tough to get right, even for a machine.
When the system first came out, it was only in a handful of parks (7? out of 30). Umpires immediately tried to adapt to the system, trying to predict what their zone needed to be to agree with often-flawed calibrations. Games in those parks were way out of the norm for awhile. Players threw tantrums (and Curt Schilling actually broke a machine) protesting the system. Now the system is in many more parks (~23) and the system is no longer in the spotlight. I believe the umps actually negotiated on what the system could and couldn't be used for (ie, personnel decisions) in their last labor agreement.
There's an editorial from the original roll-out at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59284
Because any self respecting geek doesn't give a shit about mind-numbing "professional" sports.
Now that's a wonderful image.
A robot audience watching a robot marching band, waiting in line at robot run concession stands to purchase artificial food. Robot cheerleaders leading the robot audience in chants. Robots programmed to do "the wave" slightly out of sequence in order to achieve a human-like ripple. Robot bookies taking cash from robot sports betters. Robot mobs violently confronting the robot fans of the opposing team outside in choreographed fights before being handcuffed and carted away by robot riot police, only to be returned to the stadium when the game is reset for the next daily cycle. Might as well add a random number generator to the play to keep things interesting.
For the final bit of absurdity, place the whole thing on an uninhabited world orbiting a distant star and leave it running.
They have the K-zone or some other such nonsense that they use in baseball. It tracks wether or not a pitch really was a strike and they use it later to check on how accurate the Ump was. Most umpires are somewhere in the very high 90s as far as accuracy I believe. The problem with using tech for something like a first down is after a player is down they often strech their arm out as far as possible in hopes of getting a favorable spot. Whatever system used would need a way to register when a player had been downed, which seems far more difficult than just tracking the movement of the ball. Also while it might be able to replace refs for simple calls like that, calls that require a ref to look at the intent of a player would still very likely need to retain their human element.
I have to say though, the yellow first down line on television is fantastic, and it would make the game far more interesting if they were able to project a first down line on the field. Also, at one point hockey had introduced, for an all star game I think, a bright blue hightlight around the puck on the television screen. It made it much easier to track where it was after someone dumped it in behind the net and 6 players were on the boards trying to dig it out.
My theory as to why soccer hasn’t acheived higher popularity in the US:
In the three major American sports (basketball, baseball, and football), it’s possible to go from being behind (in the score) to being ahead in one single play: think Pujols the other night, Adam Vinatieri frequently, or Kobe burying a three. That kind of emotional swing, from losing to winning or winning to losing, is unavailable in soccer and hockey (though hockey has fighting to keep me entertained).
If soccer could conceive of some way to earn two points on a single goal (a larger box outside the current penalty box?) to earn that emotional swing, perhaps there would be more interest.
I’ve only starting watching soccer because my son plays on two teams - we watch games together. And high-quality play from international teams are most definitely enjoyable. But if the team you’re rooting for is down by two goals with 90 seconds left, the game is over.
Hawkeye technology is already being used in the UK for tennis and cricket. In tennis it is used to show where serves have been played, where shots have landed and for measuring the velocity of each shot.
In cricket it shows the path of each ball from the bowler's hand to the ground and from the ground to the bat. It can measures the velocity at any point too. It's used quite often in tests by the 3rd umpire for LBW decisions. It works really well.
Sig Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Really, it is time to let humans play and officiate human games, and video games can be governed by the technology. Remember baseball is a game of inches, and progress in the game's rules, technology, and fashion of play changes in only "inches" too. Really, think to yourself.... how many times have you said "Aw, we was robbed." as to "The ump called him safe, whatya gonna do?" I think it has to balance out, and no, I don't have time to fish the stats out of google or MLB to back 30 (-6 years for being pissed about strikes) years of baseball viewing. Oh, right, I played(amateur) for almost 10 years too....
Sig Hansen?
...in yesterday's Telegraph, following the use of more technology in the recent cricket "rest of the world vs arguably the best in the world" series.
D ETAILS&grid=&xml=/sport/2005/10/18/scnic218.xml/
One of them by Mark Nicholas:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?view=
and also in the main "review" of the recent 6-dayer. I can't help thinking that they'd have been a bit more positive if the rest of the world hadn't played so abysmally throughout.
The Telegraph being the Telegraph, they didn't miss the opportunity for "Rudi Coatstand" jokes, either.
"Another advantage it has, compared to other sports, is that it need little to none infrastructure, so poor kids can play it everywhere."
I have heard that excuse given many times, and I still have to disagree. Soccer needs a ball, and optionally some goal area (only if you want to keep score). Likewise, baseball needs a ball, and a stick. Bases are optional, or can be landmarks (why does second base keep crawling away?) Mitts are very good for hard balls, but not needed (early american baseball didn't use mitts, and catching the ball on a single hop counted as an out). Football doesn't need line markers. Kids play it with 4 downs per side all the time, with no first downs. So Football requites a ball, and two lines, or equivalent. Basketball? a ball and a wastebasket or a tree or a building.
All of these require an open space of some sort.
So I do not see how soccer is any easier for poor kids, really.
I used to think this way, too. Lately, though, I'm starting to believe that this is a misconception, common as it may be. Consider, for example, Unger's Living High and Letting Die.
Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Any changes, even minor, to a ball or tool that sportsmen practice with relentlessly, would not be easily adopted by them.
Take a tennis ball for example. Any electronics placed in it would modify the physics of the ball tremendously, and the players would be playing an entirely new game.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Having a computer/sensor determine if a ball was in vs. out, on the line vs. not, is fairly simple, but different sports require a different level of human judgement. A sport like figure skating requires more human judgement than a sport like tennis. I understand the need to make the correct call in sporting events. Organizations like the NFL are trying very hard to do this, but this leads to a problem. When the use of technology changes the way the game is played (i.e. coaches can contest a call via instant replay, umpires in baseball calling balls and strikes differently, etc...) that's when I have a problem. Call me old-fashioned, but when the use of technology effects how the game is played, the game isn't the same. The history of the game; team records, individual accomplishments, etc.. aren't the same any more, they're incomparable. If you use technology to make the correct call in a game, the game is usually delayed somewhat, which leads to extra commercial breaks, which leads to more revenue for the sport. Also, just like another person explained, having a human make the call (and an a rare occasion, get it wrong) leads to fans talking about the game with friends, co-workers, etc... which then usually creates more interest. More interest equals more fans which equals more money for the sport.