Speakers
Description
In recent years, many novel technologies are introduced to sports competitions with the aim of assisting referees in enforcing rules and increasing the accuracy of decisions. However, there is limited knowledge of how the implementation of novel refereeing technologies impacts the elite sports refereeing role. The purpose of our study is to examine how referees experience that the implementation of technologies impacts their everyday practices in sports refereeing. To examine this, we conduct qualitative interviews with elite referees in football, ice hockey, and ski jumping. The analysis investigates what happens to referees' practices when novel technologies are introduced to enhance decision-making in sports competitions. Our findings show that referees experience novel technologies as an asset and a threat to the refereeing role. The referees experience that some of these technologies represent a “safety-net” to enhance decision-making, or that they are valuable tools to optimize communication, learning, and development. However, the referees also express how the same technologies diminish their authority on the field and escalate a culture of surveillance of referees’ bodies and performances. Our findings also illustrate how women referees appear to have fewer opportunities to use novel technologies compared to their male counterparts, creating a digital divide among elite sports referees. Despite highlighting multiple benefits of novel technologies, the referees in our sample raise several concerns related to the trustworthiness of the data these technologies produce and the surveillance that come with their implementation.
