Ranking Instant Replay in Sports

  Instant replay has been used for officiating purposes since 1985 (to the best of my knowledge) when the USFL tinkered with it and the NFL followed the next year. Many purists claim that the use of it takes away the human error from the game, and that the officials are just as much part of the game as the players. The problem with that is that the players are the ones playing the games and therefore the ones that should be deciding the match, not the referees. As someone that has officiated both baseball and ice hockey (baseball at much higher level than ice hockey), I would very much appreciate help in certain calls. There are some plays that are just bang bang and although at the youth level you can't have instant replay you can have it at the professional level. Sports such as baseball, soccer, and football have a problem where a play can be called dead when it should not be, and the only way to fix that is to let close plays go and fix it afterward. Here is my ranking of 7 sports that are popular in America that use instant replay:

Hawk Eye Tennis Review 

1. Tennis
  Tennis has had a review system since the 2006 US Open where players were allowed so many challengers per set. The most common technology used in tennis the Hawk-eye system which uses slow-motion footage to decide whether or not the ball was in or out.
Pros: Around 30% of challenges are successful which is actually pretty high cause that means that officials are only 70% effective. Tennis is a good sport for instant replay because tennis players officiate themselves at a young age so they have a better idea of in or out calls and won't be as likely to waste challenges as they do in other sports.
Cons: None
Possible Improvements: I guess you could make Hawk-eye even more accurate.



2. Ice Hockey
  Instant replay has been used by the NHL to determine whether or not a goal is actually goal since 1991. The league office has also been using it in recent years to punish players who participate in dirty play. The goal review is used to make sure the puck crosses the line and that the puck wasn't put into the net illegally. Goals toward end of period are also reviewed to make sure they crossed line before end of period

Pros: every goal is reviewed by video goal judge while play is stopped after goal to prevent delay in game, referee and video goal judge are only ones allowed to call for instant replay, very accurate
Cons: depends on the the home or national broadcast to feed footage(problem in Pittsburgh few years back where douche bag the station director didn't provide all footage and it ended up costing the Flyers, the Flyers still won cause the Penguins are bitches)

Possible Improvements: league can set up own cameras

3. Basketball
  The NBA began using instant replay in the 2002-2003 season to see if a buzzer-beater shot left the hands of the shooter with more than .02 seconds left on the clock. Later, the NBA started to use instant replay to decide which players were involved in fights and deciding if fouls were flagrant or not. It can also be used to fix clock malfunctions as well as deciding if a shot was worth two or three shots. If a player was fouled on said shot it can determine how many free throws the player gets. The NCAA uses replays for reviews of fights, buzzer beaters, determining two-pointer or three-pointer, and to see which player was fouled in order to determine who takes the free throw.
Pros: covers most situations, refs get to decide when to use it
Cons: could add more situations to be reviewed
Possible Improvements: use it to punish players who flop, out of bounds calls

4. College Football
  The Big Ten started using instant replay in 2004 and most conferences followed suit in 2005. By 2006, the NCAA made instant replay part of the rules. Although there is no unified code for instant replay, reviews can come from either a coach's challenge or from the video review official up in the press box. Most fouls cannot be challenged except for illegal forward pass and passing interference (only to wipe it off if ball was tipped before hand). Catches, down or not
Pros: replay can be initiated by official, usually very few challenges per game
Cons: coach's can challenge (which means there are either wasted challenges or teams get punished for challenging a call they sincerely thought was wrong), dead balls can't be reviewed (no way to fix that except to let play go on and fix later)
Possible Improvements: NCAA needs to have same replay rules for each conference

5. NFL
  The reason for the split between NCAA and NFL football is that the NFL pretty much solely relies on coach's challenges instead of a third party to initiate reviews. The plays reviewable for college and professional are pretty much the same. NFL began using replay in 1985 but the current system wasn't adopted until 1999.
Pros: all scoring plays reviewed,
Cons: coach's challenges (see college football), dead balls can't be reviewed (see college football), booth challenges only allowed in last two minutes of half and overtime
Possible improvemnts: BOOTH REVIEWS ONLY

6. Baseball
  Instant replay made its debut in baseball during the 2008 playoffs to determine whether or not a home run occurred. Fan interference, fair or foul, and whether or not a ball crossed the fence are eligible to be reviewed.  The new Collective Bargaining Agreement which is currently being negotiated plans on expanding replay to all fair or foul calls, all fan interference, and whether or not the ball is caught. If those changes are put into play, baseball will shoot up the rankings but they haven't happened yet.

umps running off to use replay

Pros: they finally put it in, game does not get delayed too much, umpires call for review not pitcher
Cons: not enough plays reviewed
Possible Improvements: add current proposed replayable plays as well as runner interference and fielder obstruction, as well as umpire's interference, possibly foot on bag or not, problem is that baseball depends on one call to effect how the rest of the play plays out

7. Soccer
  Soccer still doesn't use any type of instant replay and so far the only technology I've seen them use walkie-talkies and temporary spray paint to mark where the wall can stand. FIFA's 2010 World Cup was covered by blown calls and they can fix this. The only problem is that FIFA is unwilling to change, in fact FIFA's president Sepp Blatter claims that blown calls add to the "fascination and popularity of football."(he can't be too bright, he helped Qatar get a world cup) The good news is that FIFA is looking into using the Hawk-eye technology that tennis uses to determine whether or not the ball crosses the goal line. 

Douche Bag Idiot
Sepp Blatter

Pros: None
Cons: None cause it doesn't exist
Possible Improvements: review all goals to make sure players weren't offsides and that a handling of the ball didn't help the scorer, goals that are scored directly after an incorrect offsides call can be reversed, assistant ref can push button for assistance on who gets throw, corner kick, or goal kick, and of course technology to decide whether or not ball crossed line