We all know of the technology that can determine whether a tennis ball was in or out. Why can’t that(or similar) technology be utilized in, say, baseball or American football, to help determine things like in play/foul ball in baseball, or forward progress/ball spotting in football? I’m talking about something that would be built into the ball itself, like a GPS marker or just a simple radio transmitter. It can’t be a matter of price. Could it be a matter of the durability of the equipment required? Would a transmitter be able to reliably survive the forces that such things are normally subjected to in the course of a professional game?
I’ve long wanted the NFL to put transponders in the balls. Two per ball – aligned along the imaginary line from one pointed end to the other – would be able to tell you exactly whether or not the ball crossed the plane of the goal or if the QB got a first down on a QB sneak.
They have introduced it in cricket and not only does it improve umpiring decisions it makes for much interesting analysis: Hawkeye SA vs Tendulkar. The detail is amazing with exact ball trajectories for every delivery.
Right? That’s what I’m talking about! Replays are slow and boring. When that red flag comes out and the commentators start running the footage frame-by-frame for 5 minutes I change the channel. Nobody wants to watch that crap! If the seemingly simple technology were implemented, we could know these things instantly. As for tech taking over for officials, that’s never going to happen; the game is so complex, there are so many things happening on every play that tech couldn’t possibly ever entirely take over officiating of a game. This could possibly even eliminate some of confusion at the bottom of the pile on fumbles?
With Hawk-eye, tennis and cricket balls are visually tracked, and the trajectory/position of the freely-moving ball can be calculated. In addition, the only thing of importance in these calls is the position of the ball relative to fixed points/lines on the field.
This doesn’t make sense for football, when the ball is visually obscured by bodies (e.g. the ball carrier’s body) and encounters unanticipated accelerations (e.g. the ball carrier being tackled). Also, there needs to be some way to tell whether the player was down by contact and whether the whistle had been blown to signal the end of forward progress.
In the end, challenges purely about spotting the ball are pretty rare–most challenges are about ball possession (e.g. receptions, fumbles), down by contact, and whether players were inbounds. I don’t think any technology currently feasible can make a significant dent in the time spent in replay challenges.
In baseball, I’d definitely try to use Hawk-eye to get rid of the umps’ calls on balls/called strikes. Still need the umps for all the other stuff, I think.
I’ve often wondered, in the case of tennis where rulings are sometimes made on the basis of the thinnest slice of ball touching a line, is it really that accurate?
The website of the company behind hawkeye claims that “[d]uring ITF testing in 2006 Hawk-Eye made the correct call in 100% of all tests, showing an average error of only 3.6mm. The system recorded 100% of all rallies” (quoted from about a quarter of the way down the linked page). While I don’t quite understand that sentence, it seems that if the average error is indeed 3.6mm, then the system is not quite as accurate as the replays purport to be. However, I think all players accept that any incorrect calls are likely to even out over time, and the system is at least definitive. Of course, human errors in line calls will also tend to even out over time, but this system is more accurate than humans can manage, so we may as well go with it.
Please note Ellis Dee’s mention of not visual tracking, but inserting transmitters into the ball. That completely eliminates the issue of the ball being obscured.
As for whether the ball carrier being down, or when the whistle has been blown - it seems like a trivial matter to syncronize the data.
The OP seemed to think that Hawkeye and “ball transmitters” worked in the same (or similar) ways, which is why I clarified how Hawkeye worked (and how it wouldn’t work for football). Sorry about the confusion.
The point still stands that in situations where the ball spot is important (rare compared to the total number of replays, IMO), you’ll still need someone to review whether the ball carrier was down or when the whistle blew.
Looking at Josh Winepuck’s link about ball-tracking for Aussie rules football, I think it’s telling that review of the ball crossing the goal line is not one of the features; it’s more a training tool and a gimmick for TV audiences.
Since we’re on the topic of noting Ellis Dee’s proposal–what happens if part of the ball crosses the goal line, but neither of the transponders?
My crummy illustration of a football going in sideways towards an end zone:
End zone |
End zone | () <–football
End zone |
Having two transmitters on either point of the football allows software to know where the rest of the football is at any given moment as well. Whether the technology actually exists for this to happen, I’ll leave as an exercise to the future transmitter manufacturing overlords to determine.
If you know where the two transponders are within the football, you should be able to extrapolate where the rest of the ball is. This is unlikely, given the point-forward way that ball-carriers tuck the ball into their arm or the way they hold it as they dive forward, but the technology should be able to handle it, just as it handles situations where the tip of the ball crosses the plane of the endzone, but the transponder doesn’t.
Yeah, exactly. I was thinking you might even be able to get away with just one, provided it can transmit orientation info along with location. Using two would be more stable and reliable, I think.
But in about 99% of the NFL reviews (WAG), it’s not whether the ball crossed the plane, but whether the ball carrier was down first. Just determining ball position is trivial to the naked eye, it’s whether he was down before the ball crossed the line.
Personally I think technology that could project a 1st down line onto the field would have more benefit. It’s easier to tell if a ball has crossed something you can see, instead of just trying to determine where to spot it when his knee hits in the absence of markings.
This wouldn’t tell you just that the ball crossed the line, it would tell you WHEN it crossed the line as well. Once you know that, you just determine when he was down, and compare the two numbers.
I’ve always wondered why they don’t just spot the ball on first down at the nearest yard marker (except on first-and-goal situations). It makes things simpler by eliminating the need for chains with minimal impact on the game itself.