NBA will use Hawk-Eye technology for out-of-bounds and goaltending calls NEXT SEASON to improve officiating accuracy and the speed of the game
The NBA announced new technological partnerships that will be instrumental in how the game is refereed in the future with basketball turning to Hawk-Eye.
Hawk-Eye Innovations, a technology owned by Sony, will be implemented to help determine out-of-bounds and goaltending decisions starting in the 2023-24 season.
The technology will be used to automatically make judgement calls on decisions where it’s easy to track the movement of the ball.
This system uses a series of cameras to help track the position, movement, and speed of a ball, which is then triangulated to make a three-dimensional projection of its trajectory to aid in refereeing.
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Hawk-Eye has become common in sports like soccer and tennis. Three of the four Grand Slam tournaments – Wimbledon, the Australian Open, and the US Open – have used Hawk-Eye to improve the accuracy of line calls to determine if a ball is in or out.
The NBA announced it would be implementing Hawk-Eye to use in future refereeing decisions
The system uses multiple cameras to track a ball, then triangulate and display its position
The NBA will likely use the system for out-of-bounds decisions, as well as goaltending calls
In soccer, the technology has most commonly be used in goal line technology in helping decide whether or not a ball has completely crossed the line. In cricket, it’s used to determine whether or not batters are out.
In the NBA, the system will likely also be used for out-of-bounds calls, but also for goaltending – either to help decide if a shot is in its ‘downward flight with an opportunity to score’ or if its within the so-called ‘imaginary cylinder’.
While Hawk-Eye was initially developed for cricket, it’s common use in the other two sports have not only made calls more accurate, they’ve made them more fair.
The league also said data gathered through Hawk-Eye will further its analytics and could even help with recreating games virtually.
