Are Replay’s in Sports a Good Thing
We
have seen many close plays in professional sports recently and some of these
plays have affected the outcome of the game. The installation of instant replay
in sports like baseball and basketball has already helped correct many calls
that the referees or umpires have made mistakes on. These calls can drastically
alter the outcome of games and change the success of a team for the season or
in the playoffs. Most sports are now adopting the instant replay in some way, whether
it be reviews or the MacCam in tennis. I would predict that in the next two or
three years every professional sport will have some form of an instant replay system.
Now that the leagues are beginning to install instant replay into the game they
should now expand on this and make more plays reviewable. As seen in cases in
the NBA and MLB only certain plays are reviewable and in NBA they only do
replay during certain times of the game. If this change is made and more plays
and situation are review able it will make the instant replay system more
effective and there will be a lot less games decided by a bad call.
This
is especially true in the NBA as replays only occur in the final two minutes of
the game or the second quarter. In certain cases they will review a play throughout
the game if the coach request a review and the referees decide that a review is
necessary. For example the majority of the reviews in the NBA are for out of
bounds plays or shot clock and game clock questions to determine if the player
got the shot of in time or not. Many times there is a questionable call made on
fouls, I agree that a personal foul should be a judgment call and should not be
reviewable. I would say that charging and blocking fouls should be reviewable
because in a lot of cases the referee has a bad angle and can’t see if the
player was set or if he was moving and these calls are very important call in
the game. Another play that should be reviewable at all times is traveling.
This is because in the NBA traveling is never called but every player travels
multiple times throughout a game and this would determine a change in possession
which can change the score and outcome of the game. The league has made
progress in the replay system over the past few seasons and with a couple of
changes to the system the league could better its system and further help the
game.
Baseball
is the most recent sport to adopt an instant replay system, and so far it has
been successful. There rule is that each team is given one challenge for the
entire game, if you win your challenge you will be given a second one, if you
lose you have no more challenges. This is similar to the way the NFL runs its
replay system. For the MLB the replay system was greatly needed as many games
were decided by a poor call and there was no way to challenge it. In the past
season and a half of MLB play there has been many overturned calls that have
helped umpires correct the calls they had gotten wrong. These corrected calls
can save runs if the call is out or give teams more base runners to drive in
and score more runs if the call is safe. The same goes for fair or foul as when
the ball is down the line it is hard to tell if it is fair or foul and these
calls are extremely important throughout the game. Balls and Strikes should be
kept as a judgment call for the plate umpire and should never be reviewable because
there would be challenges happening on almost every pitch throughout the game.
The limit in the number of replays that you can use in a game is also a good
thing to have as it makes the coaches think harder on whether or not to
challenge as opposed to challenging every close play. In the MLB the main
problem that needs to be fixed with the replay is the amount of time it takes
as many times it takes around 4 or 5 minutes to solve the issues and that is
much too long to make a decision.
The
NFL has had the replay system for the longest of any sport and has been the
most successful. Allowing each team 2 challenges per game and having no
challenges in the last two minutes of the half or game and only official
reviews can occur in this time. Overall the NFL has a very strong replay method
using the booth review. In each sport that has started using replay there has
been a major improvement on the number of calls that have been wrong. This
therefore makes the game a lot about how the players play during the game
rather than allowing the umpires or referees to decide the outcome of the game.
The replays need to be solved faster is the only major problem with replays in
sports. When the reviews take too long it takes away from the game so the
referees need to solve the problems in a faster manner. In my opinion replays
are necessary in professional sports and each sport needs some form of a replay
system to help limit the number of mistakes made by referees or umpires
throughout a game
