A perfectly officiated game, with no consequential errors made by human officials8212;what a thought.
I honestly doubt a coach, player or general manager of any team would ever turn their noses up at an omnipotent referee who had unlimited vision and efficiency in every call. Unfortunately, someone with those abilities does not exist, so instant replay must fill the void.
It was 1963 when The Beatles rocked the U.S. for the first time and basketball legend Michael Jordan was born. It was also the first time instant replay was used during a televised sporting event. Since that pivotal broadcast of the Army-Navy football game on CBS, replay technology has grown and been adopted into nearly every sport. In the last 10 years, it has become a tool used to assist officials in six major sporting leagues.
Since officials began taking advantage of current technology, every sport has adapted its rules to make games more fair and more evenly officiated, and games are less frequently decided by the blow of a whistle.
It is important for a referee’s ruling to be the right decision. If a player is in bounds, he or she should be rewarded for that fact, whether the ref could see them at the right angle or not.
With instant replay, everyone has the opportunity to see the play for what it really was, not only what the ref thought it was. It provides a way for games to be called correctly and a chance for players to be recognized more accurately for their remarkable ability, instead of leaving things to a referee’s eyes.
The replay system in each sport is different and has many variations to fit the needs of each controversial situation that occurs.
No sport takes more advantage of the available replay systems than football. The classic red-challenge flag began to fly in the NFL in 1999 and has been kept available to coaches ever since. This highly effective system gives coaches the chance to formally question the ref and attempt to make a wrong call right.
NCAA football added this same type of system to its rules in 2004 when it experimented with replay in the Big Ten conference.
The ability to challenge a call has been the most influential change in football in the last 10 years. There are so many calls in football that are nearly impossible to see with the naked eye and the ability to review those plays have made things easier on referees and more judicial for the teams.
I have seen far too many games won or lost through the official’s eyes. He or she only has so much ability to see what really happened, but the ability of multiple “digital eyes” that have rewind and slow motion capabilities has proven itself to be nearly error proof.
This technology has proven itself in the past and will continue to show its effectiveness for as long as sports are still thriving. I would dare predict the instant replay will become a tool in countless sports as soon as they realize its time to get out of the past and into the future of sports.