Rise of the Ref Machines

“The future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. I wish I could believe that.”

– John Connor, Terminator 3, Rise of the Machines

Ángel might finally and really be an angel. Quick, name 10 pro sports referees/umpires/linesmen/etc.

When you think of the folks who officiate games, it’s rare for most folks to know the names of more than a few lead officials in their favorite sports. But names like Tim Donaghy, Joey Crawford, and yes, Ángel Hernández tend to stand out in their fields in ways that can only be described as… unfortunately.

If you’ve not caught the true rarity of a near-universal celebration of the retirement of a sports official, Ángel Hernández has called it quits after spending the last few months “on the bench” after another year of hits like this:

When it comes to calls like the above, or questionable calls for other reasons like Donaghy, it’s easy to see how flawed things can be for athletes when the guys keeping it between the lines… well… suck.

But in ways, it’s maybe even more difficult for players to play against that human element when it’s simply inside the sliding scale of what’s “normal”. Officiating crews in hockey and basketball have reputations for being strict or lenient across their leagues. Football officials are studied by players to see who is prone to be looking away in a crucial moment, or who tends to call interference more frequently. Baseball players tend to know how tightly or loosely that strike zone will be called, or who might be more likely to call a swing a strike, etc.

The larger point is that with the years of history surrounding human officiating – and what other choice did sports have – there’s always been a large and sliding scale as to the quality of officiating. While it’s easy to accept the “sweet fate” of something like a fifth down, for the larger group of fans outside the fanbases watching a little more dispassionately, the game loses something when the outcome comes down to bad calls.

While the idea of anyone other than a hopefully-highly-trained-and-exceptional human being officiating games used to be the folly of fantasy and science fiction, there’s now a world of possibility available to each and every sport, with technology moving at a pace season over season that has been jaw-dropping.

You can see in the Hernández video above, baseball has had the ability the last few years to draw a strike zone for the viewer that is ridiculously accurate. One of the pitches Ángel missed this year was a record 6.78 inches outside the zone, and you could see every last fraction of it as it happened. Basketball has now implemented a similar view this season, allowing a clear view of whether or not the ball is still above the cylinder when a player touches is to call interference. Football has a ridiculous number of cameras running along the goal line, and can draw a more accurate first down marker than the gents with the sticks, and hockey has some of the best replay capabilities in sports.

So many other capabilities have come and gone, from puck trackers to offsides flags, with each of them still having applicability to what might be the real sweet-and-final outcome.

With all that is currently possible, the capabilities of these leagues, and the technology wizards helping them make leaps and bounds that would be the envy of any NBA player. How far is one of the major leagues from taking advantage of camera tech, infrared, ball tracking, AI, and more to finally remove the imprecise element of human officiating from the game(s)?

While the idea may feel a little cold and running from the spirit of the games, imagine the possibility for athletes and fans alike to know that the game they adore will be called the same way, every time. Time after time, by a “ref” who is the same in every game, even if there are a dozen games being played simultaneously. For folks to know that there won’t be a new set of rules come playoff time, or that a single officiating crew might be able to deeply sway the outcome of a multi-game series.

Naysayers say that the downside of the idea would leave loopholes in a sport that might be hard to close. That “floppers” or bad actors will learn ways to leverage the system unfairly. Proponents might say that those troubles are already true, and fully compounded by the sliding scale that each different “view” might bring.

Is it time? With the tech quickly falling into place, would sports be better or worse if every game was called exactly the same way? With the speed things are progressing, we may not be too far from finding out.