First off, I watch TV sports extremely infrequently, and don’t follow any professional sports. So I don’t really care one way or the other. But I am curious about how sports fans view the instant replay reviews of on-field calls. I was thinking about football, but I’d be happy to hear of any other sports.
I watched a grand total of 1 football game this year, a bowl game that Illinois was in. During it there was one call that seemed blatantly wrong, but there was a lot of confusion as to whether it would be reviewed. I forget the result. And I skimmed an article in the paper saying Bills fans disputed a couple of calls in Sunday’s loss to the Chiefs.
I always thought ump/ref fallibility is a part of the game. To this EXTREMELY casual viewer, the way video review is applied seems very complicated (which calls can be appealed/are automatically reviewed), and the standards seem less than crystal clear (what is uncontrovertible video evidence).
In my opinion, they are making a good faith effort to ensure the calls are correct while trying to minimize the disruption to the game.
As a general rule, they don’t want to use video replay for judgment calls. Only for clear objective calls like a receiver getting his feet down inbounds. They are starting to allow video replay on some judgment calls, but very slowly and deliberately. Seems reasonable to me.
I think my favorite replay system is college football where they automatically review pretty much everything but keep quiet until something blatantly wrong happens. Seems to be the smoothest approach.
While it is true that human error is part of the game, I prefer the human error be judgment calls rather than objective calls that a video replay could ensure is correct. (Although, in my opinion, video replay failed miserably with that 4th down run by the Bills. Looked like he clearly got it to me.)
When replay reverses a call in a way that helps your team, it’s good. When replay reverses a call in a way that hurts your team, it’s bad.
I think most fans appreciate that some games (like football) are very fast, complicated, and have lots of action, and it’s unreasonable to expect the refs to get everything right in a fraction of a second. Important calls can change the course of the game and no one wants a bad call to decide wins and losses. Most fans also want video review not to take forever and disrupt the course of the game.
I can only speak for MLB baseball but they literally send the video to a panel in New York to have them review the call. They are looking to find evidence to overturn the call. If they don’t see the evidence of the call being wrong - even if they also don’t see evidence of the call being right - then the call on the field stands.
There’s a person in the dugout who’s job it is to decide whether or not to ask for the replay challenge. Many times a player will convey to that person that they are positive the umpire got it wrong (usually when they are called out at a base).
And @Telemark is spot on about how fans feel about it. Yay! But also boo!
As an example of a sport that does it horribly wrong, you can look at English Premier League soccer. They have a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) but they can only look at certain offenses (red cards, offsides leading to goals, fouls leading to goals, handballs in the box, penalty kicks, and a few other things). And they very rarely overturn anything because they have a “clear and obvious error” standard and the guys doing VAR are also refs so they don’t want to make the other refs “look bad”.
Also, what you have given up is the (IMO) unparalleled joy of a goal in soccer, which are rare enough to actually matter. So instead of overwhelming euphoria you are holding your breath waiting for the VAR check to be complete. It’s madness, which is why some soccer leagues are already getting rid of it for everything other than offside (which they are trying to automate).
I think baseball has gotten better about using it, and have realized that certain baseball calls (tag plays where the runner comes barely off the bag during a slide, double-plays around second where the ball and fielder might not arrive at exactly the same time) don’t lend themselves well to video review while others (fair/foul, out/safe at 1B) do.
As far as the Bills/Chiefs game, the two “questionable” calls were a catch that might have hit the ground and a 4th down rush that might have made the line to gain. In both cases the call on the field was upheld because there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn them. And, in general, I think that’s probably OK - neither one was obviously wrong (the catch was the more likely incorrect one, but also much less impactful to the game).
Second-hand I’ve heard rugby does a pretty good job with replay, and I know cricket and tennis have basically automated the calls that are hard for humans to correctly judge (line calls in tennis and LBW and nicked bats in cricket).
ETA: So, in summary from this fan:
EPL - terrible
MLB - OK
NFL - Pretty good
NBA - Very good
Tennis - Excellent
Replay should be used to overturn blatant missed calls like when Robey-Colemen mugged Lewis in the 2018 NFC championship for the famous not-called pass interference. But I agree that unless the replay is absolutely clear that judgement calls should stand.
Cricket seems to be good not great despite all of the technology. I’ve seen LBWs that are obvious with the tech but still called not-out.
Are they automatically reviewing all goals, or only the goals in which it appears something may be wrong? Because if the latter, then the “unparalleled joy” of a goal should still hold true, and the suspense and uncertainty while waiting for a VAR review for one of those “was it or wasn’t it” goals is a small price to pay for getting it correct.
I’d say well over half of the goals have some sort of VAR review involved. But maybe that’s just because the team I follow has had a number of them this season.
As to whether it’s a small price to pay, I guess I just disagree. The joy of scoring, in any sport, is pretty much the ultimate experience, the reason you watch the game. If you are going to diminish that in any way it better be for a damn good reason, not ticky-tack offside calls and fouls. Look at it for 30 seconds, max, and if you can’t tell immediately that something was wrong move on.
It doesn’t help that, in the EPL at least, VAR doesn’t actually do it’s job on the serious errors. Every week there is some travesty of a call where the VAR refuses to let the on-field ref know he’s made a mistake. They should do it more like MLS, where if the replay shows there is significant doubt let the on-field ref see the replays and then make their own decision based on the video evidence.
It feels like instead of reducing the number of calls we argue about, we have just moved the point of argument from the on-field ref to the replay ref. Sort of like the Bills-Chiefs calls, actually. The Chiefs benefited from a spot call, and the replay was inconclusive. So now instead of saying “yeah, that’s a tough spot, but it’s really hard for the ref to see it” we have outrage that the replay review didn’t fix the call.
The officials are there to ensure the rules are followed. They are not there to be part of the game. If you can eliminate human error in officiating, it makes sense to. The point of the game is to have the results determined by the players actions, not by umpire error.
On borderline calls where you need zoomed-in slow-motion replay to show the ump was wrong? Sure. But when Angel Hernandez was mis-calling balls and strikes, that’s not part of the game.
Many high level matches (all the majors?) don’t have replays anymore, they just got rid of the line judges.
I think hockey does a good job, although sometimes it takes a little too long. Soccer officiating is just terrible all around, so I’m not surprised they don’t do a good job with that as well.
For some reason, I hate the air box signal that they use in soccer and rugby. I don’t know why, but it bugs the hell out of me.
I agree. It makes more sense to have a separate official review the plays as they happen rather than having the on the field official stop the game to review video while everyone holds their breath for minutes awaiting the dramatic announcement of which way the call will go.
In college football, there is one “judgment call” that is specifically not reviewable: if a field goal (or extra point kick) attempt passes above the height of the tops of the uprights, whether or not the ball passed directly over either upright, which would make the kick no good. I put “judgment call” in quotes because it’s about as much a judgment call as whether or not someone caught a pass inbounds or not; it is something that can definitely be answered yes or no.
My highest level of team competition was college club-level rugby, where there was one official, no player other than the team captain could speak to him, and the captain had to call him “Sir.” If the official didn’t see it, it didn’t happen. Worked just fine.
Like I said, as a non fan, it just seems odd at times. There will be a close play. The ref makes a play. It could easily go either way. But they stop things and start going through replays to see if there is “indisputable evidence.” Maybe it is reviewed by the ref looking at a camera on the field, or by a ref up in the box.
Or else there is a call that seems clearly wrong, but they aren’t reviewing it “because those aren’t the sorts of calls that get reviewed.”
So long as the refs are calling penalties and balls/strikes consistently for both teams, and are getting in position to make the calls, I think it fine to admit that there is SOME degree of human fallibility inherent in the game, and that some calls are likely to go against each team.
Look at it the other way - why have home plate umps call balls and strikes? Couldn’t that be done more precisely by some lasers and AI? Why not set up lasers defining the end zone to establish when the ball crosses the line? I mean, if precision is what is sought…
Sorry - I don’t mean to argue too strongly one way or the other. Like i said, I’m not a fan. And if you fans approve, that’s fine by me.
I only watch college football, and while its mostly okay, it seems to be a Half-Assed system at best in my opinion. Some stuff you can review, some stuff you can’t. If you want to get it right, review it all or leave it to the guys on the field.
It pisses me off when they spend 3 minutes reviewing if its a catch, while in the background you can see a lineman tackling a defender which went overlooked, and if called holding would render the whole thing moot and a penalty on the offense.
Wanna get it right? Call the holding. Or just forget it and go with the call on the field and play the damn game.
With all the changes in the game, I’m rapidly loosing interest anyway.
I think this is the answer. There is a balance to be had. The two extremes are this… Either there is no review of any call and everything an official says in the moment is how it is, which then leads to many bad calls standing, even egregiously bad ones, calls that end up unfairly costing the game for the team that should have one. Or, every single call is reviewed, and you end up waiting for play after play to be scrutinized before play continues.
Both lead to bad products. You don’t want fans disgusted by game results that seem invalid, but you don’t want fans bored by a game that bogs down because half of the time you’re waiting for a forensics team to analyze every angle carefully of every play that is even slightly controversial.
They try to find a balance between the two extremes, and they get it wrong all the time, but they are trying to make it better each year. And as long as they keep trying, I think it will be a better game to watch.
(I’m speaking of the NFL here, because that is my #1 sport I consume, but the same could conceivably apply to any sport really.)
Let’s be honest, the human eye isn’t capable of properly tracking every pitch when a ball is flying potentially more than 100 MPH from any angle in real time. Technology does it better. And it’s frustrating as a fan to have a tracer that shows you when an umpire is wrong as it happens. Let the technology do what even the best humans can’t possibly do correctly. A hundred years ago we didn’t have an alternative, now we do. And this isn’t the case of needing a “review”; you know immediately if it’s a ball or strike. It’s a rare case where you can make a game both more accurate and faster. It seems like an obvious call.
That is my impression as well. But, as I’ve said, as a nonfan I have no skin in the game.
But isn’t it impossible to tell which plays really cost one team the game? Who knows - maybe an incorrect placement of the ball in the first quarter cause Team A to punt, whereas if they got the first, they woulda scored. Oh, but the QB wouldn’t have suffered a season ending injury in that sack…
I’d suggest a system of transmitters in the ball and lasers would handle correct placement and TDs. The other ones? My personal preference is, if the ump was in position and made a call on a close play, well, even if he was wrong. That is the game and your job is to respond and overcome. So long as the game is being called fairly, the next “wrong” call will likely be in your favor.
A football team is down by 4, it’s 4th and goal and there are 3 seconds left on the clock. No timeouts left. They toss the ball into the end zone, and it’s caught! But an official says he stepped out before completing the catch. Turnover on downs. Other team kneels out the clock, game over.
On replay, the receiver definitely was able to toe-tap and make the catch in the end zone, from the angle of the closest official in real time it seemed like he stepped out but he didn’t.
Certainly doesn’t seem impossible to tell which play cost the team the game.
You can argue that a thousand things led the game to that point but that’s picking nits to a ridiculous degree. There’s a reason why some plays are routinely (and often automatically) reviewed because it’s important that they get them right. It’s not hard in the NFL to know which plays those are; generally any play that seemed to or might have resulted in a score or a turnover, those are always scrutinized.
If you want your boat to float correctly, you worry about the huge hole in the middle of the hull and don’t really need to worry about the scratch on the deck.
I think as technology improves, I think we’ll be seeing things like this. A tracker in each nose of a football could help resolve an issue where you can’t see where the ball is during a play, that’s just one possibility.
I’m fine with the way it’s been implemented in MLB (the only one I’m really familiar with), and occasionally I even enjoy it for the added suspense. Instead of just arguing about whether the umpire blew the call, you get to argue about whether the umpire blew the call and then find out whether the guys in New York reviewing the footage will agree.
