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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?"
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
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
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.
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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.
Having a robot that called balls and strikes correctly instead of an ump would not reduce the "human factor" in baseball. It would merely make the pitcher who throws the ball the human determining the outcome, rather than the ump. How is that bad?
No, the humans actually playing the game and competing make the game.
And if anybody was suggesting that, your complaint might be valid. But we're talking about replacing referees. Those aren't the people playing the game.
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