I like football/soccer ⚽. Nowadays, I prefer playing it over watching regularly on TV, although every X years is nice to watch the most important competitions (Euro, America, World Cup, Champions League...).
Here in northern Mexico "american football" 🏈 is also popular, so it's natural for me to watch and like both versions of 'football'.
As a fan of technology I'm always wondering how much the latest innovations could join into sports. Being with cameras, 'smart' balls, tracking devices, and many more.
Sport is entertainment. And professional sport is professional entertainment.
I agree with Louis. Also we love to enjoy the 'latest' TV, the augmented-reality experience where we see random statistics while watching the plays.
So it's kind of natural to put technology into sports, not only for the players but also for spectators across the world.
it's a matter of time before we stop celebrating goals in the moment, till VAR confirms that there was no breach of rules. And in that world, the entertainment value of sport is significantly damaged.
Until VAR can be instantaneous (like goal-line technology) football would be better off without it.
But I don't agree that much with that point. In a world where 4 years later we still remember an unfair decision, taking 90 seconds to 'double-check' and decide the outcome is a good tool for referees. I think we'll get used to it, even in stadiums and on TV.
Of course there are problems, like when referees can't hear the instructions from VAR officials:
PGMOL releases VAR audio from Liverpool's disallowed goal against Spurs
Being the most popular sport on the planet (citation needed), it's even part of it to create controversy when our teams are affected by a decision. Talking about blind fanaticism is something we'd need to discuss in another entry.
Since introduction of VAR in 2018 (about 6 years ago), a lot of things have changed, but even this years we saw a lot of polemic actions, making us feel that something is wrong.
What wrong with VAR? And how to fix it…
Mark explains much better than me what's wrong and the source of
dissatisfaction like "It interrupts the game", "It takes too long".
That occurs as we are expecting something else, as Gartners says in its chart:
Wikipedia - Gartner hype cycle
We come from instant (and sometimes wrong) decisions from referees on field. Now we need to wait for more people. Obviously we have resistance to changes even if they are beneficial in the long run.
As in american football or tennis, I think the technology will be slowly adopted until we can't remember how it was watching a professional match without it.
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EOT
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