Will Biesecker

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

5 April 2017

The Final Call: Is Poor Officiating in Sports Inevitable?

Sports play a huge role in todays entertainment industry. Almost everyone has a favorite

team, sport, player, etc. that they are overly excessive in supporting. The NFL is currently the

sole most powerful entertainment conglomerate on television.The With this, sports right now are

not in their purest form. This is due to the increasingly large role that sports officials have in

their games. Two sports industries with some of the most money invested in them are football

and basketball. These sports are also very fast-paced, contact sports, which makes them very

difficult to officiate. Taking this into account, solutions and improvements for the officiating

systems of these sports are seldom introduced. Not only are attempts not made to fix these

flaws, the flaws are rarely addressed at all.

The effects that referees have on outcomes of sporting events are substantial to say the

least. Official decisions can truly go either way but ultimately benefit the team in which the

officials give the call. Often it is unintentional and the officials truly make the call to their best

ability based on what they see. In many cases however, officials truly are biased, no matter how

much people want to believe bias does not exist in sports. The professors studied 365 college

games during the 2004-05 season and found that refs had a terrific knack for keeping the foul

count even, regardless of which team was more aggressive. (Press 1). This situation is a bias

that most fans would not consider, but truly can impact a basketball game. The bias involved is
that teams that play proper defense and do not foul their opponent as often are punished and not

credited in their technique on the scoreboard. The bigger the difference in fouls between the

two teams playing, the more likely it was that the next call would come against the team with

fewer fouls. When the home team had five or more fouls than the visiting team, there was a 69

percent chance the visiting team would be whistled for the next foul. (Press 1). These cannot

just be coincidences as 365 basketball games is a large enough sample to prove that there is

substantial fact to the bias. It is all about how the human brain works, which is a key flaw

involved with the officiating of sports. Wed like them to have no memory and strictly call

whats going on on the court, Anderson said. But part of this is, if Im a ref, I want everyone to

think Im fair and if I call 10 fouls on one team and two on the other, people are going to think

somethings going on here. Its sort of subconscious. And it points out one of the biggest

problems with basketball is that its a very hard game to officiate.' (Press 1). This is a

basketball referee subsequently admitting the flaw of officiating the game of basketball himself

which truly helps show that the system is flawed. These subconscious mistakes by referees are

different than others.

Too often in sports, one slight mistake by an official will in fact determine who wins the

game. The Patriots had their chance to pull off their vintage double-score against the Bills on

Monday night. But then the officials got in their way. (Wagner-McGough 1). This is a quote

from an article the day after an NFL football game discussing the impact a referees mistake had

on the game. A 69 yard touchdown was ultimately called off because of an inadvertent whistle

blow by a referee. This is nothing but an unfortunate mistake by the referee, but it truly caused

the patriots to lose the game. The officials made another mistake, though. Because the

inadvertent whistle occurred before Amendola caught the ball, the play should have never
counted. Instead, it should have been replayed. (Wagner-McGough 1). When the whistle blew

accidentally, the referees decided to place the ball at the spot of the player when the whistle

blew. This was another mistake by the officials as the NFL rule book states that in this situation

the play should have been waived off completely. At the end of the day, people make

mistakes. With this, people also officiate sporting events. These mistakes made unfortunately

may cost athletes, coaches, owners, etc. money. This is why it is a flaw that sporting events are

officiated by people strictly on the court or field.

Officiating a sport is a more difficult thing to do than most people may think. This is

especially true when the sport being officiate is a highly competitive, fast paced, contact sport on

the professional level with world class athletes. Basketball at the NBA level is a free-flowing

theater of athleticism, grace, precision and competitive spirit. Only by allowing each game to

unfold within the boundaries of rules and sportsmanship can its truth be realized. It requires not

only the worlds best players and coaches, but also the worlds best officials. (NBRA 1). With

this, it is impossible for human referees to officiate a perfect game with no mistakes, and the

referees themselves have accepted this. 30 teams. 120 pre-season games. 1260 regular season

games. 4 rounds of playoffs. Every 24 seconds. Every 48 minutes. Every overtime. Every game.

These are the officials who oversee competition in real-time between ten exceptional athletes,

making calls with 95% accuracy. (NBRA 1). The officials respectably admit their inaccuracy

on approximately five percent of calls. They did not have to include that statistic on their

website. With that being said, is five percent too large of a number for referees on the highest

level of basketball to be missing, or is it just that difficult of a game to officiate? Also, how

often are the outcomes of these games decided by that five percent of calls that are incorrect? A

major reason for many missed calls is that three officials, no matter their placement on the court,
cannot see every action taking place by the ten players all at once. Additionally, NBA referees

dont have the luxury of watching play from multiple camera angles, in high definition, slow

motion replay or the many other helpful viewing tools utilized by game assessors. (NBRA

1). This quote expresses an interesting point in defending NBA officials. The officials do not

always have the best view of a play to help them make the correct call, but this may be a solvable

problem. Referees could possibly be placed into a press box watching the games on high

definition television sets from different angles, and when they see a call to be made, they could

press a buzzer to stop the game, as an officials whistle does now. This would also remove

officials from the way of the players on the court. Whether changes are made or not, there are

certainly flaws with the ways of officiating. The elimination of these flaws would help all sports

produce a more pure, accurate result of a contest. If I were to guess, if every angle of every court

or field could be reviewed more closely, some rule is being broken in almost half of all plays. I

am not saying that I think a whistle should be blown every play and that seasons should be just

one game long because that is all that there would be time for. What I am saying is that if we

could better enforce every rule correctly, the rules would be followed better and sports could be

played in their purest form. No review system in place in any sport is efficient enough to help

more than minimally. A system needed is one that is finds solutions immediately and play by

play.

This would also be helpful because it has been found that sports officiating cannot be

properly executed. In the academic article, Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, a group of

Australian Professors tested Distributed Situation Awareness. In this experiment, the professors

used the sports officiating to determine in the DSA model was proper. In this experiment, they

concluded that human reflexes are not physically capable of officiating basketball games
properly (Neville 83). This shows that more technology should be incorporated into sports

officiating. This is necessary because of the amount of games in every sport ultimately tampered

by calls made by referees.

Multiple professional football games in the NFL have their outcomes determined by

incorrect calls by the referee each season. This is an epidemic that has become very

controversial and could certainly use improvements. Every week seems to have featured some

sort of officiating controversy from a missed illegal batting the ball out of the end zone call, to

an inadvertent whistle, to botching operation of the game clock, to the frequent adventures of

trying to determine just what is and what isnt a catch. (Jones 1). There are multiple different

ways in which NFL referees may negatively impact a game. Often the impact comes from a

missed or bad call by the referee, but also in many cases in todays NFL, referees impact the

games by making accidental mistakes, a confusion of the context of a rule, or just the ignorance

to a certain rule as football is a very complex game. The NFLs vice president of officiating

admitted to some mistakes by the leagues officials. Blandino said the average error rate has

been between four and five missed calls per game (with each game consisting of about 160

plays) over the past several seasons. (Jones 1). It is promising that even in defending the

leagues officiating system, he recognizes itsrecognizes its flaws. As the inconsistency of the

referees in the NFL does seem to be rising, all of the fault does not fall on the referees. There

are several reasons the quality of officiating seems to be at an all-time low: An increasingly

complex rule book, increased turnover rate for league officials, and the rampant availability of

high-definition, slow-motion replays in real time that make second-guessing even easier. (Jones

1). These points are all very influential in the growing criticism of referees. Some people

believe that refereeing experience plays a large role in NFL referee problems, but the vice
president of NFL officiating disagrees. Blandino admits there has been plenty of turnover

recently, but disagrees with the idea that inexperience is causing more inconsistency. He said in

the leagues weekly evaluation, the first- and second-year officials are not performing markedly

worse than their more-experienced colleagues. (Jones 1). Either way, searching for solutions to

flaws in officiating is necessary. It is good to see that members involved with the NFL are trying

to answer questions.

The Atlantic Coast Conference took a step in the right direction in attempting to improve

its flaws in officiating. The Conference did this by reforming its instant replay rules, after many

football fans were asking for this change by not just the ACC, but by the entire NCAA. The

calls to reform instant replay in college football reached a crescendo last season after ACC

officials botched the end of the Miami-Duke game, now notorious among officiating debacles.

(Adelson 1). In conclusion of this game, there was a kick-off returned for a touchdown by

Miami to win the game. The problem with this was the officiating that took place in that final

play. There were multiple missed calls in that final play of the game, which ultimately resulted

in an embarrassment for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Duke coach David Cutcliffe said in the

immediate aftermath, There were no appropriate words for what had happened.' (Aldeson

1). The coach of the Blue Devils had a right to be upset, his team lost a football game because of

the referees. At least the ACC admitted its mistake and suspended the officials although, unlike

other conferences. Unfortunately, that game was not the first to be decided outside the lines. It

was simply the latest. A week later, Big Ten replay officials came under fire for the way they

handled the game-winning touchdown in Nebraskas win over Michigan State. The Big Ten

stood behind its officials. (Aldeson 1). All NCAA conferences have similar mistakes being

made, but the ACC is the first one to make a certain change in its instant replay system. To that
end, the league announced Tuesday that Ted Jackson would become its first assistant coordinator

for football replay the first such role among FBS conferences. (Aldeson 1). This means that

Ted Jackson will be in complete charge of all instant replay reviews in ACC football games, with

expert knowledge on how to judge a replay. Although this does not mean that Jackson will make

the calls themselves, he is solely a coordinator whose job is to help officials know when to make

what calls, and be prepared for each situation. There is no question something needed to be

done to try to fix a system that has clear flaws. Whether a dedicated replay coordinator makes a

marked difference certainly will be interesting to watch over the next several seasons. (Adelson

1). This is not a large step towards a flawless officiating system, but it is certainly a step, and a

step in the right direction is the key to a solution.

Steps in the right direction are needed in all sports, including those not mentioned in this

paper. In no way will officiating ever be perfect in any sport, but increasing amounts of changes

can be made to help these officiating systems. Everyone complains about officials and the calls

that they made in a single game, but not enough people place the blame on the systems in place,

not the individuals who fall as scape goats in situations. Change is possible in these systems, and

without it flaws within officiating is indeed, inevitable.

 Works Cited

Associated Press. Fewer fouls on home team. ESPN, http://www.espn.com/mens-college-

basketball/news/story?id=4682821. 23 Nov. 2009. Accessed 3 March 2017.

n.a. NBA Referees near Officiating Perfection. NBRA, http://www.nbra.net/nba-referees-near-

officiating-perfection/. 6 May 2015. Accessed March 3 2017.

Neville, Timothy J., Salmon, Paul M., Read, Gemma J. M., Kalloniatis, Alexander C. Play on

or call a foul: testing and extending distributed situation awareness theory through sports

officiating. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, vol. 17, no. 1, Taylor & Francis Group,

26 Nov. 2015, pp. 80-103. Accessed 3 March 2017.

Today, http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2015/12/02/referees-officiating-dean-blandino-

refs/76687956/. 2 Dec. 2015. Accessed 5 March 2017.

Wagner-McGough, Sean. Officials' inadvertent whistle costs the Patriots a potential 69-yard

TD. CBS Sports, http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/officials-inadvertent-whistle-costs-the-

patriots-a-potential-69-yard-td/. 24 Nov 2015. Date Accessed 2 April 2017.