Instant Replay: The Positives and Negatives
The sports industry has embraced the concept of instant replay. In professional and college sports, they use this system to correct or make sure of calls to help make the games fair. Instant replay comes with many problems when trying to make the game fair. Some people are intrigued with it, and some despise it; it is all a matter of opinion.
First, instant replay has many features that make it so great. It allows officials to make sure calls are correct so no one has to question whether a team has been cheated. Instant replay changes the outcome of games. In baseball, a call could be that the runner was safe stealing second base, but with instant replay, a manager can challenge the call, and it can be overturned.
Instant replay also has a slew of negatives. As Eric P. states, “What is the point of having challenges in football when instant replay is used most of the time anyways?” It slows the game down. It takes out the atmosphere and momentum of a game because of how long it takes, in turn, stealing the game’s excitement from the fans (and the players’). For example, in the Duke-Miami college football game, the officials messed up many calls on a storybook ending by Miami. They then reviewed it and still got it wrong. The replay took ten minutes, and they missed three more calls on the same play. Instant replay can get things right, but it also gives chances for officials to get the call wrong which makes for an even bigger uproar.
We need to revamp the way we use instant replay; first and foremost, it needs to happen more quickly.
Photo from Public Domain
