How Robots Referee Sports

Are AI referees ruining sports? Or making them better?
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If you’re watching the 2023 US Open, you’re seeing automated referee calls. After years of controversy about human accuracy, tennis has used a system called Hawkeye to not only check human calls… but now to replace human referees. And this robot ref revolution isn’t just happening in tennis. It’s taking over the sports world. Soccer, basketball, baseball, they are all using machines to improve the calls being made on the field. The World Cup in particular has invested in these tools, from VAR (video assistant referee) to semi-automated offside and goal-line technology.

The stakes are high. The difference between a right or wrong call can be a championship, or millions of dollars in prizes, endorsements, ticket sales. For the most part, fans like tech that makes calls more objective. HOWEVER… there is a big chunk of sports fans who would strongly disagree, who think that robot refs are ruining the game.

Thing is, this tech isn’t going back in the bottle! Stadiums are now being decked out with dozens of cameras that can track balls, people, and even use AI to make calls so accurate that one day human refs might be a thing of the past…

Chapters:
00:00 How tennis started a robot ref takeover
00:50 Soccer, basketball, and baseball automating refs
01:53 High tech World Cup balls
02:17 Semi-automated offsides technology
02:58 Video assistant referee (VAR)
04:25 Why some fans HATE robot referees
05:17 Do these tools remove human nuance?
06:27 Why some fans LOVE robot referees
07:02 How Hawkeye works in tennis
07:40 NBA and MLB announcements
08:14 Why these tools are huge if true

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM and 35mm prime
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX

Music: Musicbed

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

What do you serve but never eat?

… Tennis balls.

Use the word “serve” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who read to the end :)

[lockheedmartincomapny]

1:30 abu dhabi 2021 f1 reference. Lol 😂

[apoorv]

not Cleo using the "difference could be a championship" statement at 1:02 with Max Verstappen 😂

[Normally_aspirated]

Anyone saying they hate more accurate calls is mad they can't fix games anymore by paying off refs.

[abijitdikshith]

In cricket, we have Hawkeye, but there is a thing called 'Umpires call' if it's wayy too close, allowing the human factor to still come into play. this way obv decisions given wrong are overturned, but the really close ones are still left to human judgment. Just thought you should know that.

[petergerdes]

I think the real issue is that the rules haven't necessarily been updated to reflect the fact they are going to be called by unbiased machines. Right now there are alot of rules that completely disallow big results because of even a minor violation of the rule.

That does suck but there is an easy fix. Change the rule so that infractions under some threshold yield things like penalty kicks (or in American football a yardage penalty potentially applied after the touchdown and possession change) or whatever and don't undo the score.

[nadamuchu]

hi, please fix the captions. they cut out at 2:56. thanks! - a deaf fan

[jason_]

You forgoet to mention that in 2025 all tennis tournaments on the main tour (WTA & ATP) will no longer have lines judges

[arun]

The point of referees and umpires is to accurately evaluate the game and make calls, if technology can help do that better it should absolutely be used. The entertainment for me is the athletes playing the sport, that’s the human element. I don’t want to turn umpiring and refereeing into another secondary sport that also has human error.

[joelkumar]

Probably worth mentioning that haweye was invented for cricket first before other sports adopted it.

[yontonmonpon]

It’s funny as a Belgian hearing her and the computer completely mispronounce Club Brugge and then saying “i got that one”

[irvine]

I definitely want. I would much rather have accurate calls that are annoyingly accurate than have absolutely disgusting calls coming in that we can all clearly see are terrible.

[livelierfellow]

Immediately as soon as you mentioned "it's 2004 and Serena Williams is playing Jennifer Capriati" i rolled my eyes cause I remember watching that match live and being appalled that such a horrible call was made. I don't miss these types of arguments at all. It's insane to me that players still lose points due to human error (at least at bigger tournaments that can afford it) when tech like Hawkeye exists.

[manasladdha]

I don’t understand why cricket isn’t even mentioned in this video. Not one single frame. Your point regarding the human factor could have have been better explained with the example of cricket. Poorly researched video.

[tckoppang]

I love soccer, but the problem revealed by this tech is that the offsides rule needs updating -- not the tech. We need a rule that gets at the goal of calling offsides better than the current rule. In other words, we need better game design here, and not better or worse tech.

[Gogu_Duru]

5:30 Club Brugge...yeah I got that right.😂😂😂😂No, you didn't.

[KTK]

Cricket is trying to account for the grey area in umpires decision related to use of hawk eyeTech in umpiring …which has a mixed review

[eliasmochan]

I think there biggest problem with the VAR in football (soccer) is that they let the play go for far too long before invalidating it. Before, the referee and the line judges where making calls the moment they saw them, now you see a pass, then 5 more passes and then a goal, and 3 minutes later it turns out the first pass was offside and the goal doesn't count.

It's also frustrating when you see a goal, but you can't celebrate until they validate it 3 minutes later. Even when it turns out it is valid the feeling is different.

[larswillsen]

In rare cases I find entertaining channels while recording music - this morning I found Cleo and was immediately sold! :-)

[ctriis]

I think the main complaint about VAR among soccer fans, or at least Premier League fans, is really about how poor the implementation of the tech has been. That includes two main concerns: 1. the rules governing the use of the tech within the game, and 2. the amount of time it takes the ref to make a decision on the pitch when using the tech. The last one doesn't matter much for many other sports, but for soccer it's a major issue as the clock only stops at half-time and at the end of the game.

[donna]

The Australian Open has had electronic line calls since 2021.