hopinet

Technology makes decisions in sport?

7th March 2009

I turned on the radio yesterday to hear the presenter having a bit of a rant about the new referral system in Cricket. The new system allows each team two chances to have an on-field decision referred to a TV umpire. The presenter was complaining that it takes the fun out of sport. This got me to thinking, not just about technology in Cricket but the age old discussion about technology in all sports. Is it a good or bad move to allow the referees access to technology?

There are two schools of thought really, the first is as this presenter thought. By allowing the decisions to be referred it can spoil the flow of the game but more importantly you take away the power of the ref and also he argued that unpredictably is what makes sport so watchable and exciting. He argued that this unpredictably included the mistakes that referees makes. The decision the presenter was complaining about had been referred to the video ref and the on field decision was reversed. Even though the correct decision was made he argued this was a bad move because the on field umpire then loses control of the game. I can see what he was arguing but I have to say I’m in the other school of thought…

What I think
Firstly I think we must avoid every decision being sent to the video referee. Limited the number of challenges seems an easy way to control this, it seems to work really well in tennis and limits arguments with referees, they get their chance to question decisions so they can’t complain. It has also worked well in American Football for years. Having said that I think technology is a great addition to sport decision making. As TV viewers we have so much technology at our disposal. We sit there and watch replay, slow motion, graph plots, etc and when the referee gets a decision wrong (which he will at some point because he’s human) we shout and complain. Surely it is unfair we have all this technology and the the referee doesn’t. I would think it puts them under more pressure not having the technology than being given access to it and surely rather than giving them less authority it does in fact give them more authority to make the correct decision.

A quick question for those people who say ‘I don’t want technology in sport’, do you ever complain about a decision a referee makes, then shout and abuse the TV in disgust? Is it in fact this that you enjoy about watching sport? Is it losing the ability to shout at a bad decision in an all knowing way what you are worried about? Adding technology to sport will mean you will no longer be able to complain about bad referee decisions. I know I enjoy a good rant at the referee!

Technology must be used sparing but if we can make it easier for referees to make correct decisions, why would anyone not want that? Why will it spoil the excitement of sport? 90% of time referees do a fantastic job, technology will help them go the extra 10%.