A cutting-edge virtual measurement system will make its NFL debut when the 2025 season kicks off in less than two weeks, to help make the most precise ball placements the gridiron has ever seen.
The new Sony Hawk-Eye camera technology will soon make sideline officials who rush onto the field with a 10-yard chain to determine whether the ball is in position for a first down a thing of the past.
Justin Goltz, commercial director of Sony’s Hawk-Eye North America, told ABC’s Good Morning America that the new system implements “six 8K cameras in every NFL stadium that measure where the static ball is on the field.”
“So, once a ball has been placed by the official on the field, we can determine whether that ball has or hasn’t passed the line to gain,” Goltz explained.
Sony worked closely with the NFL to design the camera measuring system, which is controlled in the instant replay booth with playback and touch screens and applied in real time.
The NFL’s deputy chief information officer, Aaron Amendolia, told GMA that “this technology was tested in the background of all games last year — preseason through all the whole season and the postseason.”
Once the referee on the field spots the ball after a close play, the operator zooms in on that ball to confirm its location. The Sony Hawk-Eye then cuts back to the ball’s position before the play began and recreates a virtual measurement for viewers.
Amendolia said implementing Hawk-Eye will help with the NFL’s continued efforts “to have less interruption to the game and to the action.”