The Southeastern Conference is seeking to improve the experience of fans attending live football games by allowing more action to be shown on the video boards.
The SEC announced Aug. 27 that, beginning this season, stadiums within the conference are much less limited in their use of replays. This will replace their previous policy, which allowed only one real-time replay for each play in a game.
With the exception of stoppages occurring for an official review, institutions are now allowed to show as many replays as they want in the time between the end of a play and the beginning of the next play.
Though the video boards cannot display regular replays during official reviews, they are able to show a live video feed from the television network broadcasting the game, allowing fans to view the play in question.
This is allowed in the time between the referee’s announcement to stop play for the review and his communication of the review’s outcome.
The change in policy was recommended to the SEC Athletics Directors by the conference’s Working Group on Fan Experience, chaired by Mississippi State University Athletics Director Scott Stricklin. Based on this recommendation, the new policy was approved by the athletics directors in August.
This policy change is an effort to encourage fan attendance in venues across the conference by attempting to simulate the action seen in television broadcasts.
“The change in policy will allow our fans to see more of the action, including great plays and close calls,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive in a statement regarding the policy change. “Fans in the stadium now can see many of the same views of a play seen by fans watching on television. This should add to the overall game experience for fans inside our stadiums.”
Due to the speed of the game and some technical issues, the new policy was not implemented in Tiger Stadium in LSU’s game against North Texas.
“We show as many replays as were are capable of,” said LSU Director of Television and Media Kevin Wagner. “When you run an offense as fast-paced as [LSU’s], we don’t have enough time to show more than one replay.”
Wagner cited the ability to show a live feed of the television broadcast as the biggest and most noticeable change to come out of the announcement.
“Unfortunately we were unable to do that last week because the equipment we need to install to do so was held up by Hurricane Isaac and lost somewhere in New Orleans,” Wagner said.
Hurricane Isaac also caused problems with the video board on the south end of the stadium, putting it out of commission Saturday.
Wagner said he is not sure when technical issues in the stadium will be fixed, but he hopes to have everything up and running by this Saturday for LSU’s bout against Washington.
