Menu
Leagues and Governing Bodies

MLB Officially Unveils 900-Square-Foot Replay Operations Center

MLB and MLBAM yesterday unveiled its newly completed Replay Operations Center, a 900-square-foot command center located within MLBAM’s N.Y. HQs that will be the hub of the league’s expanded instant replay system. The location, constructed over the course of about six week this past winter, is directly wired to each of the 30 MLB ballparks, where at least 12 cameras have been installed at each site. The Replay Operations Center will feature two crews of umpires, totaling eight personnel in all, rotating in over the course of the season to work the site as if it was the league’s 31st ballpark. There, the umpires will work with MLBAM technicians and umpires on site at the other ballparks to review plays. MLB Exec VP/Baseball Operations Joe Torre admitted he, like many others in the game, required some convincing to adjust to the new system, but now believes it will be a boon for the sport. “We want to make the game fairer and better through the replay system,” Torre said. “I guess I’m an old codger. If there was a bad call that cost me a game, that to me was part of the game. Now technology is part of the game.” MLB data showed 377 plays last year during the entire ’13 schedule that would have been overturned in the new replay system, roughly one every 6.4 games.

CHALLENGE-BASED SYSTEM: Unlike the other major sports’ use of instant replay, MLB’s newly expanded system will operate on a challenge-based system in which a manager will receive one challenge per game, with a second one awarded if a manager correctly overturns a call with his first. The league is aiming for replay decisions to require at most three minutes on average to make, with initial trials during Spring Training with lesser technological resources hovering in that range. MLB’s average length of game last year was a record 2:59, and Torre said other existing pace-of-game rules will need more stringent enforcing to enable the expanded replay system. “In order to make this thing work and not have it make the games longer is the fact we really have to start disciplining and paying attention to repeat violators,” he said.

NINE WORK STATIONS: The Replay Operations Center features nine work stations, each with four 46-inch screens and headsets allowing immediate communications with umpires at any ballpark. The room, formerly a MLBAM video edit station that has since been relocated two floors down within Manhattan’s Chelsea market, is lit low to allow for better viewing of the screens and features its own power supply, heating and ventilation. While constructing the facility in a short period of time was its own operational challenge, a bigger obstacle was outfitting each of the 30 ballparks with identical video equipment teams will use to aid managers on replay challenge decisions. “You had 30 different facility layouts and space issues in some of them. That was definitely a big hurdle,” said MLBAM Chief Technical Officer Joe Inzerillo. Specific financial costs on the project have not been disclosed. But more than $10M was spent to wire the ballparks and the overall expanded instant replay project has approached $30M according to industry estimates.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2014/03/27/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/MLB-Replay.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2014/03/27/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/MLB-Replay.aspx

CLOSE