The past few decades have seen huge technological strides affecting almost all avenues of our lives. By and large, it has served towards betterment. barring exceptions where technology is considered to have a more negative impact. However, an area where technological progress is considered unanimously as an opportunity rather than a threat is ‘sports’.

This is primarily because technology in sports is largely perceived by athletes and spectators alike as a means for promoting transparency and fair play and, at the same time, for minimising human error on the playing field.

Technology comes in handy especially in international sports, where athletes compete for high stakes and nationalistic feelings run high. In such situations, even an innocent error of judgment on the part of a referee or umpire, for instance, can be taken as a biased decision, depending on where the decision maker belongs to, or where his or her apparent sympathies lie.

Going back a bit in time, for the first time in history, a Test match was televised live on BBC on June 24, 1938 – the second Ashes Test between England and Australia at Lord’s. There were a total of three cameras only – one focusing on the batsman, one on the bowler and one to get a glimpse of the general atmosphere of the venue. Furthermore, it was limited in coverage to an estimated television audience of just 7000 in the London area – no colour, no full match coverage, no replays, no multiple camera angles, and no highlights. Nevertheless, it was a huge achievement considering that it was a live picture transmission and also that, technologically, this milestone occurred just 16 years after the first-ever live radio coverage of a match (in 1922). By the 1950s and 1960s, with the advent of video recording, cricket matches began to be routinely recorded for replay, analysis, and highlights, particularly with the rise of limited-overs cricket and televised broadcasts. During this era, improvements in video recording technology allowed broadcasters to film entire matches and replay key moments.

The first known use of slow-motion replay on television goes back to a boxing match held in the US on March 24, 1962, which was reviewed a few minutes after the bout ended, in slow motion. Instant replay technology was subsequently used in American football and later made it’s way quickly to

other sports including cricket, basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis and so on. These milestones paved the way for the advanced replay technologies which have improved the decision-making accuracy and enhanced the audience engagement, thus ensuring fairness and accuracy in sports.

When the first television broadcasting started in 1938 in England, it covered only 20 km and for an estimated television viewers of only 7000 in the London area. But those were bygone days with only a nostalgic value. Coming fast forward to the present age of digitisation, the impact of technology on sports in general has been dramatic and overwhelming. Whether it’s cricket, hockey, tennis, football, athletics or any other field sport, there are cameras all around the boundary line, zooming in to cover every angle possible and every action on the playing field. The entire match and commentary are relayed live to not just the television sets, but also via the internet to millions of desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. Fans compete with each other, flooding the social media with their match comments and analysis.

The current century has seen an exponential evolution of video broadcasting which has most dramatically enhanced the out-of-stadium viewing experience of events by providing a match viewing experience of equal entertainment value, if not more, than audiences sitting inside the stadium. There have been technological innovations, which have brought about a major uplift in the quality of video broadcasting experience across the sports arena. Some of these prominent technological innovations include:

Instant Replay Technology

This technology has been used widely in almost all sports. In Cricket, it is mostly used to review run-outs, stumpings, doubtful catches, and whether the ball has crossed the boundary for a six or fell short for a four or stopped near the boundary line to save a four.

Decision Review System (DRS)

The technology was first used during a Test match between England and Pakistan on the Lord’s Cricket Ground on 21 May 2001. Subsequently, ICC allowed the induction of the advanced Hawk’s Eye technology to be used as part of the DRS system. Its major use in cricket broadcasting is in analysing and reviewing the leg before wicket (LBW) decisions (by the third umpire), where the likely path of the ball can be projected forward, through the batsman’s legs, to check if it would have hit the stumps.

Use of Hawk-Eye Ball
Tracking in Tennis:

Hawk-Eye was tested in 2006 by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and got approved for use in professional tournaments. In the same year, the US Open became the first grand-slam tournament to use the Hawk-Eye technology. Also, it was the first time that players were allowed to challenge the line calls, similar to Cricket where players are allowed to ask for a review of doubtful decisions. The Hawks-Eye technology has since been used successfully during television coverage of major international tournaments including Wimbledon, the Queen’s Club Championships, the Australian Open, the Davis Cup and the Tennis Masters Cup.

Replacement of human line judges

Since 2021, the Australian Open has used Hawk-Eye to call lines. The US Open replaced line judges with full electronic line calls in 2022. On 9 October 2024, the All-England Club announced that electronic line calling would replace human line judges full-time at Wimbledon starting in 2025. This trend is perhaps a reflection of things to come in other sports too.

FIFA approved Goal-line Technology (GLT)

Here again, Hawk-Eye is the Goal-line technology (GLT) authorised by FIFA and was used in the 2014 World Cup for the very first time. Hawk-Eye tracks the ball and informs the referee if a ball fully crosses the goal line into the goal. The purpose of the system is to eliminate errors in assessing whether a goal was scored.

Ultra-Edge Technology

The ‘Ultra-edge’ technology is a review system used in cricket to detect whether the ball made contact with the bat, or did not (also known as a ‘Snickometer’).

When the cricket ball touches any part of the bat or the batsman’s body, it produces sound in a particular frequency range, discerning between the sounds created by the bat, pads, and clothing. The sensitive stump microphone records the audio and amplifies this specific frequency, eliminating the unwanted frequencies. In conjunction, a slow-motion camera records the movement of the ball as it travels past the bat. The recorded video is then seen in combination with the time graph from the Ultra Edge and then used for reviewing the decision. The umpire, plus the spectators in the stadium and those at home, see the resultant curves appearing on the large stadium screen or the one on the home television. Thus, we have a technological system which leverages transparency and fair play at its best.

Hotspot Technology:

An alternative to Ultra Edge is the Hot Spot technology, which uses Infrared technology (instead of sound). Hot Spot is sort of an imaging system used to determine whether the ball has struck the batter’s bat or pad. It requires two infrared cameras on opposite sides of the ground above the field of play that are continuously recording an image. Hotspot makes it clear whether the ball has hit the bat or not as it leaves a clear mark, whereas Ultra-edge identifies the touch of the ball to the bat through sound.

In conclusion, technology has profoundly transformed the sports industry by reducing human error and promoting fair play. It has elevated sports from the confines of stadiums to the comfort of people’s home HDTV sets, including portable devices such as smart phones, tablets and laptops.

Technologies such as The DRS and Hawk-Eye have already revolutionised sports and taken quality and entertainment in sports to new heights. The augmentation of existing technologies with AI could open new and exciting possibilities and revolutionise sports in ways previously considered unthinkable.

The onus is now upon the various sports governing bodies to take full advantage of the ongoing rapid advancements in digitization and AI, which would be in the larger interest of sports.

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