Video Review Needs to Happen Now

[gblake]

Folks,

FRC/VRC/FTC/VIQ matches don't proceed in little increments the way many big league sports do (USA football downs, baseball batters & pitches, Cricket ___s, Tennis volleys) .

And, they don't have long stretches of continuous action like many other big league sports (Nascar, Soccer, Basketball or Hockey).

Because of the implications of those differences, I believe that as a practical matter, untangling the spaghetti of knock-on effects that many (most?) overturned calls would create, would be a nightmare of ambiguity.

Except for the last N seconds of a match (where N is very small), everything that affects the score has an effect on how teams and alliances play the games. Neither alliance could argue that an overturned call from early in a match doesn't effect both alliances. In those many cases, I think there would be little a ref could do other than throw their hands up and initiate a replay.

I believe that Video replay successes in big-league sports are unlikely to translate into FRC successes. I predict that if video replay in FRC is successful, it will be because an FRC method is created, not because a big-league method is copied. I also believe that a successful FRC method will be a purple squirrel for most, and the great white whale of some.

I'll look forward to hearing from folks who attempt to use video replays during the upcoming off-season, to see what effect these differences create between what folks are imagining, and what is actually going to occur. I'll bet a beverage that the gulf between ambition and accomplishment is pretty wide.

Unless/until we have some experimental results to digest, I think our current posts are only making 11-12 years of "rubble" bounce.

I'm willing to stop bouncing the rubble, and wait for the results.

Blake