The NFL becomes of high technology to measure for the first stockings: NPR

Washington – From this fall, the NFL will remove the use of channel teams to measure the first lows in favor of the technology based on the camera which can automatically determine the distance, the league announced on Tuesday.

Human referees will always be responsible for the placement of football after each game. But when it is too close to know if the ball has crossed the line to win a first descent, those responsible will use cameras to automatically determine this, rather than measure it with the traditional 10 yards.

The new system will be based on a set of six cameras placed around each of the 30 stages of the NFL. Technology is operated by Hawk-Eye, the Sony sports review technology company. Hawk-Eye has provided rereading assistance in the game to NFL officials since 2021, and the new measurement system was tested “largely” in 2024, the League said.

A virtual recreation of the measure will be displayed on television shows and on video dashboards inside the stadiums. The process will save approximately 40 seconds compared to the traditional measurement of the manual chain, said NFL.

Technological help calls to place football became stronger after the AFC championship match in January between the Chiefs of Kansas City and the Buffalo Bills, in which the referees governed the quarter of Buffalo Josh Allen short of a 4th quarter-Arrière at the end of the game. The proofreading examinations carried out during the match were not conclusive enough to overthrow the initial call for the referees, said officials, because the views of the camera on the ball were partially or entirely obstructed by the bodies of the players.

The new system would not have changed this result, because the referees will always have to use their own judgment to place the ball before the Hawk-Eye cameras can measure if it has reached a first try.

A technological system which can place reliably and precisely the ball does not yet exist, according to the officials. During a press conference in February, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the development of such technology was “complicated”.

“Obviously, you have a lot of humanity which interferes, potentially, with part of this, at least from the point of view of the angle of the camera,” he said. “You also have the different shape of the ball, and it is almost where the ball is, not where the individual is.”

The League is actively working on the implementation of such technology, he then said, although any possible solution is tested for the accuracy and reliability of pre-season games or other leagues before the implementation of the NFL.

Hawk-Eye also provides automated opinions in other sports, including out-of-tension calls for tennis and offside in football. During spring training this year, Major League Baseball deployed an automated ball ball challenge system using Hawk-Eye camera technology.