Slashdot Mirror
NFL: National Football Luddites?
theodp writes "The National Football League has been brainstorming with tech and communications companies on how to bring the NFL into the 21st century. Major-league sports are famously technophobic — the NFL outlaws computers and PDAs on the sidelines, in the locker room and in press-box coaching booths within 90 minutes of kickoff. But that may be about to change, which the WSJ's Matthew Futterman speculates could mean: 'Coaches selecting plays from tablet computers. Quarterbacks and defensive captains wired to every player on the field and calling plays without a huddle. Digital video on the sidelines so coaches can review plays instantly. Officials carrying hand-held screens for replays. Computer chips embedded in the ball and in the shoulder pads (or mouth guards) that track every move players make and measure their speed, the impact of their hits, even their rate of fatigue.' Part of the impetus for the changes is the chance for a windfall — the NFL's sponsorship deals with Motorola and IBM will expire after this season, and the NFL will be seeking more technology (and presumably cash) from its next technology partner(s)."
I don't watch pro sports because I can't relate to it. It's not interesting. Now college and lower are really interesting. There are huge differences in the athletes and you can see it. Mistakes happen so you can compare perfection to imperfection. Coaches matter too. And everyone is having fun. Pro just kills it. If they are going to go pro I'd like to see them go all the way and allow super modified cyborg humans compete.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I'd say the NFL is probably one of the least "luddite" of the major sports--compare them to soccer or basketball for example...
substance abuse in professional sports is so high that it is not entirely accurate to consider the sports a display of human skill--although not super-modified-cyborg-humans, they're as close as they can be without being detected by drug screenings
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
MLB's At Bat app for the iPhone and other phones is one of the best sports apps I've ever seen. Players have adopted iPads as a scouting aid. I don't know where the author makes the claim that sports are technophobic; perhaps a better way of putting it is that they're slow to adopt, but that's not the same thing as Luddism.
Dog is my co-pilot.
. . .why are any of these technologies necessary or beneficial to NFL football? The sole benefit I could imagine is the ability to better protect players from injury, or after an injury has occurred. Other than that, I want to see athleticism, strategy and luck, not dweebs huddled around techno-baubles.
First, any call regarding location could be decided electronically and instantly. Every time they position the ball after a tackle, determine a first down, out of bounds, touchdown ... no reason not to use sensors and make instant, accurate calls. No more errors, no more wasting time on replays.
You could use sensors to decide issues of contact:Determine pass interference -- was the hit before the play? Facemasking ... roughing the kicker ... helmet-to-helmet ... sensors in receivers gloves, in the ball, and in the field to determine possession on catches ...
Sure, sensors won't be perfect, and probably some application would turn out to be impractical, but take the refs errors out of the game, spend less time referreeing and more time playing.
If computers were allowed, it might have far-reaching effects. A computer could know the entire state of the game, and look through every game in history to determine the outcomes of each choice a coach has at a particular moment. It could present to the coach a list of choices along with the expected outcomes given the probabilities in the past. In a way, it would eliminate some choices of the coach.
I think baseball would be affected much more than football. Baseball has ten times the games per year as the NFL, so statistical analysis would be more effective.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
There is a huge focus now on scoring plays. Every time there is a scoring play, the play is reviewed to make sure the player wasn't down and that the ball actually crossed to goal line. I've always thought they could make it a lot easier on the referees, for both scoring and spotting the ball, if they put RFID or similar chips inside the balls, then put sensors at every yard line to determine where the ball was at a given point. As a football official myself, let me tell you, there is a lot of inaccuracies regarding ball spotting. A lot of the time, especially if it is an out of bounds play, they will simply spot the ball on the closest yard line (unless of course it is right by the other team's bench, then they have to be much or accurate".
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
A current NFL quarterback solved two of the Clay Millennium million-dollar prizes while in undergraduate school. Goes to show that stereotypes don't always fit!
Given the NFL's record, I don't think that anyone having been sacked a bunch of times will be able to do much more than count change when they're done.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I don't care at all for NFL. or any "major league" sport for that matter.
I don't see the bad side of more money being invested in technology though.
I've seen this story before. NASCAR infamously has been trying to integrate technology, yet they can't track the speed or position of any of the 42 cars on the track at a specific moment in time...they rely on 100 year old radio wave transponder technology and timing loops. "Math" consists of dividing the length of the track by the time to complete one lap to determine a car's speed. "Telemetry" consists of how far the throttle is depressed (um all the way usually) and how far to the left the wheel has been turned.
This would be so great for the sport. I am a huge football fan, and for the most part, I feel that NFL referees do a decent job of officiating the game considering the phenomenal pace at which these athletes are moving (flying) around the field. Use of HD-Replay allows them to "get it right" with a rather high percentage.
Think of the potential for this: With just a few modifications, a football can have a chip to detect where it is on the field, at any given timestamp. This can be used to practically guarantee correct calls on scoring plays. Why not take it a step further and have the ship calculate how much pressure is being exerted on the ball from the player holding it (to determine if someone has "possession")?
However, while I feel that technological advances for the sport in general are good (sensors in the ball and on the field, referees with better access to information), I am concerned about what happens if each TEAM gets to use increasingly complex technology because then the league has to provide the same tech to every team in every game. Obviously, if one team has access to superior information/technology that the others don't it is game-breaking. You can't give one coach a live, continuous HD feed from the sky viewing all players on each player (the coveted "All 22" shot) if every coach doesn't have it.
(I just feel the need to soap box here and point out that NBA is a completely different story, as I'm almost certain that [playoff] NBA officiating is absolutely rigged and has been for the last decade.)
Anderson talking to Graff about his new job.
"Though after years of watching those children flying, football is like watching slugs bash into each other."
- Ender's Game
my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
In UK several teams use tracking devices on players, multiple gadgets , multiple maps , so far the best result i have seen was on a software that predicted the player effort and could determine with a good accuracy is next injury, so the effort on that player could be managed. knowing that on premier players rate from 10M each it is for sure a good investment.
As for the game rules.... we use to say , a referee that doesn't score a penalty by mistake or incopetence, as the same guilt as a striker that failed an easy goal, the referee has the right to be wrong sometimes.
I have some books about football history and the in the 60's and 70's there was a genuine fear that teams would use computers to replace human intellect for play calling and analysis. They had to relent as far as radio headsets for coaches/offensive coordinators and quarterbacks, because teams were using "messenger guards" to relay information into the huddle every play anyways.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Only one of the Clay Millennium prize has been solved and that was by a reclusive Russian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems
Quarterbacks wired to every player and calling plays without a huddle? Really? How does that make the game more fun to watch?
It only makes it fun if it is being done as a desperation move by a losing team running out of time, and they're doing something risky in an attempt at getting that one last score that would have them win.
Make it "normal" and it would lose all allure.
If you are going to get rid of the huddle, why not get rid of the play itself? Simply use modern "fantasy football" rules and decide based on the play being called and the players on the field how it will turn out. Less chance for injury to the players. Less chance for injury to the fans because there won't be as many of them driving home from the stadium drunk -- or in any other condition.
While the game might be better than a pro game to watch, it was definitely set up to make money and draw TV viewers in.
I'm not a huge football fan, but I would always enjoy seeing what went on to produce a college bowl game, from the way media were handled on the sidelines, to parachuters (or helicopters) flying into the stadium, to the halftime show, to what went on during the commercial breaks, and there were TONS of commercial breaks. The audience's attention would shift (and immediately) from the field to the end zone screens during every commercial break. If you looked down at the field or sidelines, it was as if the players, coaches and everyone else involved in the production were robots being suddenly switched off while all our eyes were diverted to the big screens.
I always found that really fascinating. The few times I've been to a pro game, the slickness of it all wasn't anywhere near what the Fiesta Bowl was.