Holograms playing in the World Cup

On December 2, 2010, FIFA will announce in what country the 2022 World Cup will be played.  That's of domestic interest for many reasons, including because the United States is one of the candidate countries.  Today, CNN highlighted one of the other candidate countries: Japan.  Japan's bid includes the promise of technology enhancing the World Cup experience for those in the stadium and around the world.  The crown jewel of this proposal is a recreation of live games using holograms beamed to facilities around the world.

Public viewing of sporting events is growing in popularity.  Fans congregate in local bars, arenas, city squares, or movie theaters to watch their team play in games that are happening elsewhere.  This kind of social consumption of sport provides the opportunity to be with other fans of the team and enjoy the game together.  With holograms projected on to a field, would fans in Columbus pack Columbus Crew stadium in order to watch the USA player holograms run around the pitch while playing their World Cup game in Japan?

As a technology geek, I love this kind of stuff.  But I don't see why this is going to be limited to Japan's bid.  If the technology is perfected by then, I don't see what's stopping the event managers in other countries from licensing it.  It won't be the Japanese government building this equipment, it will be private companies.  They can sell their equipment and services in dollars as well as in yen.  One thought is that the Japanese government is more likely than others to use taxpayer money to help subsidize companies in this area.  If it is Japanese firms doing the research and development, then maybe this is a good use of public funds to help spur growth in these industries - it wouldn't make sense for the Qatarian government to subsidize Sony, but it does make sense for Japan to do so.

That said, the CNN article raises questions about the likelihood of this project actually coming to fruition.  These concerns were validated when I tried to access the Japan World Cup bid website a few minutes ago (Dec 1, 2010, 10:30 AM) and received the following page (screen shot below):

FIFA, censorship, and human error

In the recent World Cup game between Argentina and Mexico, video replay showed that Carlos Tevez, a forward for Argentina, was clearly offside when he scored the first goal in the game (Argentina eventually won 3-1). The replays in the stadium showed the error, and though those are not available for use by officials, they were viewed by the Mexican team.

Fine, that happens. Refs make mistakes, and it's part of the game. You can debate whether or not replay should be used to help refs in this situation (or when the ball crosses the goal line), but I'll leave that for another time. What upset me was FIFA's reaction to the controversy.

FIFA's solution: just don't show replay of controversial plays. This only exacerbates the problem and does nothing to solve it.

I understand that sport (particularly on television, but even in the stadium too) is a mediated viewing experience in which the production staff presents a spectacle for the rest of us to enjoy. But when you're in the wrong, the reaction should never be to deny further information from getting out. Transparency should be paramount - human errors are forgivable, but deliberate concealment of information is not. Like our decision makers in government, our decision makers in sports' governing bodies must not withhold otherwise public information strictly because it makes them look bad.

FIFA isn't alone in doing this. The practice is prevalent in American sporting venues as well. But I chastise FIFA here because a) it's fresh and on my mind, and b) FIFA's inability to come off as anything other than arrogant makes the organization an easy target. Whether or not FIFA is arrogant is irrelevant. Their lack of skill in managing communications and public relations makes them appear as arrogant, and thus they are judged as such. But, perhaps they are already learning to change.

The counter-argument is that seeing the video replay will ignite the anger among the thousands of fans who are together in the stadium. There's possibly some truth to this risk, but even without in-stadium video replay fans can direct their anger toward officials. I don't pretend to have any expertise in stadium security, and thus I can't speak too intelligently on that matter, but I believe that people (even mobs) are more forgiving in situations of honestly rather than secrecy, especially when they know the truth anyway.

Another separate issue is whether this is a good decision for the in-stadium fan experience. FIFA argues that refs and errors are part of the game, and while that's true, fans are part of the game too. Those at home are privy to the information, but those in the stadium are not. I've been to many games where, after a questionable play, cell phone networks at the stadium are overloaded with people calling friends watching the game at home to ask what happened on the replay. That's fine when there's no video board, but when the technology is there and available, don't eschew its use.