when the ref’s a robot
kill switch
Kaleidoscope
4.7 • 635 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the high-stakes world of sports, referees have always been under intense scrutiny… but what if tech could take some of the pressure off? Or will we lose something by replacing the referee with a robot? In this episode Dexter talks with Joe Lemire, senior writer at Sports Business Journal, to explore how new technologies like Hawk-Eye are reshaping sports officiating.
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Read:
- Joe’s article on automating officiating in sports: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/09/15/how-why-and-whether-to-automate-more-officiating-in-sports-and-what-are-the-trade-offs/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:16.3 | All right, let me take you back to the Cubs versus Padres game. |
| 0:19.7 | And if you're into baseball, you already know where I'm going with this because there's really only one game I could possibly be talking about right now. Wrigley Field, game three, the wildcard series. The San Diego Padres going up against the Chicago Cubs. And this game would decide who moves on to the division series. It's the top of the ninth, full count, and the Padres Zander Bogartz is at the plate. Pitcher pulls back, throws a fastball, and if you're watching on TV, you can see the strike zone box, and that pitch doesn't look like it makes it into that box. It looks real low. Anyway, Bogart doesn't swing. And since this looks like it would be ball four, he kind of |
| 0:55.8 | starts to take his walk to first base. But then the umpire calls it a strike. |
| 1:05.9 | D.J. Weyburn just bailed out Keller and Bogarts knows it. |
| 1:16.1 | Xander Bogartz is genuinely shocked and that shock turns very quickly into anger. |
| 1:18.9 | He slams his bat down, he gets up in the umps face. |
| 1:19.8 | The manager comes out. |
| 1:21.9 | The dugout fans are furious. |
| 1:26.7 | I'm going to put it democratically in case any Cubs fans are listening to this, but this was widely viewed |
| 1:28.8 | as a questionable call. And this is where things are going to get real interesting. |
| 1:34.8 | The umpire called it a strike and no one had any recourse to change it. |
| 1:39.8 | Joe Lemire is a senior writer at Sports Business Journal. And that was one where the Padres were starting to rally, or at least had a chance to, |
| 1:47.6 | and that was taken away by this incorrect call. |
| 1:50.8 | Players and fans arguing with umpires over a bad call, that's nothing new. |
| 1:55.8 | But starting with the 2026 season, the age old tradition of umpires being judge, jury, and executioner is going to get a |
| 2:02.9 | little bit more hazy. Major League Baseball will have a new challenge system called the automated |
| 2:08.0 | ball strike system, or the ABS. I've spoken to Commissioner Manford about this automated ball strike |
| 2:16.2 | system, what most people call robot umpires. His point to me has always |
| 2:20.2 | been, we want to make sure we get the worst calls overturned. And that's what I've always realized, too, |
| 2:27.3 | is that fans can be forgiving that humans might make small mistakes here and there, but no one |
... |
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