There is no way, NO WAY, play-by-play guys will be replaced by robots
I was scrolling through my Twitter feed –killing a free moment while I waited for a Salesforce changeset to upload — when I came across a post from a former colleague (with the commentary “This will make you think!”), which linked to an article by Shelly Palmer on LinkedIn:
The 5 Jobs Robots Will Take First
I was not prepared for the third entry…
I had a YGTBSM — a You got to be S******* Me – reaction, and immediately posted the following comment:
Shelly, I thoroughly disagree with your take that sports play-by-play and color analyst commentators are to be “put out of work relatively soon” by robots.
A sports play-by-play broadcast is a performance of a dramatic narrative that is being written and performed simultaneously, in real-time. Especially on radio (and one-camera internet webcasts), an announcer learns to “paint a picture” of what is happening for the audience while weaving in pertinent elements of the various storylines of the players, coaches, teams, and fans. Performing sports play-by-play well is an art form — one that is more akin to playing jazz (improvisational) than classical (read the notes written on the page).
No matter how adept a computer program may become at learning the mechanics of play-by-play sportscasting, I find it difficult to believe that a computer is on the verge of learning all the intangible nuances that go into making play-by-play sportscasting an art form. As a veteran of thousands of sports play-by-play broadcasts who now configures computer software for a living, I would find it nigh well impossible to articulate how I do play-by-play in a way that could be programmed. Like everyone who has done play-by-play professionally, I learned to do play-by-play through the experience of doing it. While I concede that anything is possible when it comes to AI, I can’t imagine that “soon” means anytime in the next twenty-five years.
Now, imagine if robots HAD been doing play-by-play of these iconic moments in sports broadcasting history:
The Shot Heard Round the World
Does a robot repeat 5 times in astonishment “THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT” [Russ Hodges] ? I would think robots would be impartial, not overwrought with joy. Hodges also worked in a few “I don’t believe it!” phrases, which leads us to our next example…
Kirk Gibson’s Homer in the 1988 World Series
There is no way a robot says “I don’t believe what I just saw. I do not BEE-LEEVE what I just saw!” [Jack Buck] Because the robot automatically believes everything it sees.
Henry Aaron’s 715th home run
Maybe a robot could come up with “There’s a new home run champion of all-time, and it’s Henry Aaron.” [Milo Hamilton] but there is no way a robot could assemble the perspective Vin Scully provided when he said “What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol.”
Nicklaus on the 17th green at the ’86 Masters
The ultimate example of painting a picture with three words: “Maybe…YES SIR!”
Note that Verne Lundquist‘s dramatic pause extends just beyond the putt dropping so as to include the first burst of the crowd’s roar. No way a robot senses just when to punctuate the noise.
I could come up with other examples; I think you get the idea.
P.S. My thanks to Sheriff Buford T. Justice for inspiring the headline of this post.