John Buell

Sports, Technology, and Truth

The Super Bowl is behind us, and March Madness and the NBA playoffs loom in our future. I thought I would take this opportunity to muse on a sports topic that has long interested me: the role of technology in sports. I asked a friend, who is an avid football fan, if the use of video replays to assess and if necessary alter calls on the field made the results of the game more authentic and thus more satisfying. He replied that we (meaning executives, competition committees) should do everything in our power to “get it right.” Rules that now send a play to the replay booth do just that and are to be commended.

I am not so sure. The use of video replays to correct mistaken calls is a remedy to a problem the technology itself had a major role in creating or at least intensifying. Long before the era of televised sports fans have ardently booed calls they deemed wrong. The difference today, however, is that a mistaken call can be rebroadcast on the big screen again and again, erasing any doubts as to the inaccuracy of the call and stirring the crowd’s anger. I have a friend who officiated big-time college basketball games in North Carolina during the Dean Smith era, as well as attending clinics with NBA referees. He pointed out that refs dread seeing their inevitable mistakes highlighted on the big screen.

Using video replays to correct these errors does at least seem to alleviate the problem, but as with many modern technologies, there are hidden costs. Replay rules are arbitrary and do not cover all the errors to which flesh is heir. Both professional basketball and football limit the kind of plays that are reviewable, and both also have regulations regarding the point in the game when reviews are allowed.

NBA basketball assesses the accuracy of out of bounds calls, but only in the last two minutes. This regulation negates a lesson basketball coaches tried to impart when I played: Plays early in the game are just as important as those at the end. You must concentrate all the way through the game. Oddly, the NBA focus on the end of the game reinforces a criticism of the sport many casual fans harbor: most games are decided in the last two minutes so why turn on until that point.

Reviews of out-of-bounds calls in the final two minutes have an unintended effect on the way the game is played. One of the strategic decisions a coach must make is preservation of as many time-outs as possible for the end of the game. Review of a controversial out of bounds call may consume several minutes, thereby giving a profligate coach extra time to advise his/her players.

Football is more generous with regard to reviewable officiating errors than basketball, but it still makes arbitrary distinctions. A referee’s decision as to where to spot the ball is reviewable, as is complete or incomplete passes, but pass interference is not renewable. I heard one cynic argue that interference is not renewable because no one really knows what it is. Perhaps like pornography, the refs on the field know it when they see it. Nonetheless there are cases that all fans would agree are interference, and games can easily turn on such calls.

In football, the decision whether to request a review is up to the coach in most cases. Only three challenges per half are allowed, and this too has a subtle effect on the game. After a controversial call, coaches stall, hem and haw, while an assistant coach, presumably skilled in videography, hastily examines a tape of the play. I am awaiting the day skilled video technicians are drafted by NFL teams.

As for me, I am not an opponent of all replays. In the NBA, determining whether a made basket is two or three points or has occurred before the clock ran out can be determined without interrupting the flow of the game. Nonetheless, something is amiss when games depend on a level of scrutiny usually reserved only for the Zapruder film. Decisions as to when a receiver became a runner in his lunge toward the goal line seem more like medieval hair splitting. And as with such hairsplitting I am amused at how often expert commentators will proclaim that there is clear and convincing evidence to overturn a call only to be contradicted by that mysterious God in the sky, the replay booth.

Finally, as basketball playoffs approach, I will offer one off the wall suggestion. Basketball is perhaps the sport that is hardest to referee and where a wrong call makes the largest difference. Calling an unnecessary foul not only costs two or three points but also often determines the playing time of a star player. Is there a way to minimize the effect of a wrong call? How about allowing more than six fouls (NBA) but awarding three free throws for any foul beyond six committed by the player. Players still have an incentive not to foul, coaches have new strategic decisions, and star players, whom the fans came to see, still can play. Whether harm reduction rather than technological perfectionism is the way to go I leave to others for now. Any comments are appreciated.

John Buell lives in Southwest Harbor, Maine, and writes regularly on labor and environmental issues. Email jbuell@acadia.net.

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2018

Populist.com