Why Referees Will Eventually Kill Sports, or Cease to Exist

Sports are at their best when they are uninhibited. Pure competition is superior competition - three seconds left on the one-yard line, the swish of a net as the buzzer sounds - and there's no feeling like it. When those moments are interrupted by the screech of a whistle, it's disastrous. Refereeing has been forced to evolve into a terribly sophisticated effort, and it has the potential to ruin sports as we know it if left unchecked.

In 2014, the Dallas Cowboys lost a divisional playoff game to the Green Bay Packers because, infamously, Dez Bryant didn't "catch it." The outrage from that play led to a serious debate about the NFL's catch rule and a change that led to serious confusion over the coming years about what a catch truly is.

In the 2016 season, the NFL spent 13.8 hours of gametime reviewing plays, and overturned 43% of the plays reviewed. The general fanship of the NFL was left dependent on a replay review to get a call right on 345 plays in 2016 (NFL.com).

The current replay system was instituted in 1999, with the league focused on fixing the issue with human error in a game that demanded perfection from its athletes. This system (1999-2016) has seen 1.3 plays reviewed a game and 37% of calls reversed, as opposed to the previous system (1986-1991) which saw 2.2 plays reviewed but a reversal rate of 12.6%. As sports as a whole have evolved, the pressure on officials has increased and replays have become more and more essential.

This poses an important question: how long can referees keep up? Strike zones are shown on TV and every fan can see when a call is wrong. Replays showcase incorrect calls, even when they are ineligible for review. Players are faster and plays are quicker, and it can be difficult for referees to spot everything correctly. Each major league in the United States and abroad can point to at least one infamous call that they got wrong and could do nothing about. That's why it's time: the human referee should be phased out, and the electronic referee should become standard. Strike zone technology should call games. Replay headquarters should officiate games from a hub with multiple camera angles and make calls from there. Modern-day sports have created an impossible standard for human referees that cannot be reversed. Imagine trying to air a game with no replay review... fans would be outraged with the technology available today. Now is the time to begin the transition to elevate refereeing to the standard that sports have reached in their current forms.