The man behind the Post-It note, along with 40 other patents has a way to finally accurately determine exactly where a football should be placed on a field.
Inventor Alan Amron tells 93.7 The Fan’s Paul Alexander he’s been meeting with the NFL for almost two decades to get the technology to the league.
Amron says, like the first down lines seen during televised games, a green laser line on the field along with invisible lasers on the goal line and attached to the first down sticks.
Even with instant replay, referees still get calls wrong with inaccurate placement of ball spots after a tackle occurring too frequently.
Amron adds that the technology will eliminate human error.
“We monitor the ground, we monitor the sound, we monitor everything that’s happening on the football field and it goes into an algorithm and it reports back to the referee in real time,” said Amron. “If a player has the ball and he breaks the plane of the goal line, I’ll be able to tell with my algorithm if his knee touched the ground before he broke the plane with the ball or his knee didn’t touch the ground before he broke the plane with the ball.”
Amron says they just got a patent for the technology on 2/22/22.
With legalized gambling becoming more prevalent, it makes sense that the league tries to get their calls as accurate as possible.
Amron tells Alexander that it isn’t a question whether or not the NFL wants to use the technology it’s that they need to see it utilized in another league first, like the XFL or USFL.
Ideally, the technology would be used in the revived next year and then the following year the NFL would test it out in the preseason.
Amron says the initial cost for installation for the technology would be around $250,000 to $300,000 per stadium, meaning the Steelers, along with Pitt and even high school championship games could use the system.
Learn more about the First Down Laser Line here.