A recent development in the sports world is the recent strike by NFL officials, making the NFL use replacement officials to referee very important games. When thinking about the issues relating to this it just brings up a possibly example of disruptive technology that we might experience later on down the line. A position, such as referee, is a position where the human error is a large and crucial factor. There have been several instances each game that shows how many mistakes are made as well as the calls that are missed. People constantly complain about the missed call as a result of the loss on Sunday. My question is: Why deal with the constant factor of the human error in these games? There has to technology out there that will be able to keep track of all the important stats when it comes to the game.
Spotting the ball, a missed penalty call, a bad penalty call, are all examples of things that would be avoided as a result in this new form of disruptive technology. As a big football fan, the biggest thing that bothers me is the fact that other fans pin a loss or the result of the game on these officials. I am guilty myself, with robots as referees everything will accurate since they could look at everything when the six officials can only look at certain spots of the field. This could not only be used in football but in every sport, baseball is another example. All umpires have different strike zones which is not very reasonable in the eyes of some but all the plays at the bases are easily determined if this new disruptive technology ever gets implemented. In recent years in all sports, video reviews are being used more frequently. This is important mostly because they expect the human error, so using the video review could reverse the mistake. When a coach challenges a play and gets the call reversed its another way of saying, "well we messed up sorry." To me its unacceptable to use this system, why constantly deal with the human error when there is an easier replacement. The leagues can avoid these labor issues as well as saving money.
As a big sports fan I would endorse the use of robots as officials mostly because I would know that all the calls on the field would be correct. I do believe over the next couple of years they will expand their use of technology, using video review was just one step. Now I believe for the good of the game the human mistake factor should be taken out and be replaced with something that we know for sure is right every single time. Other fans on would look at it differently and would want that human error mostly because that is the way the game has been played forever. In the end having everything right would only be fair to both teams. So on the eve of the NFL season I believe the addition of this new disruptive technology would be very beneficial to not only football but every sport.
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