The Big Ten's Massive New Instant Replay Center, Explained:

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From my seat in the stands at the Miami/Northwestern game over the weekend, everything appeared normal. Late in the second quarter, Wildcat QB Mike Wright appeared to fumble the ball at the goal line. The officials initially ruled the play a fumble, but then consulted the instant replay to make sure. A minute or two later, the play was confirmed.

But this year, the procedure wasn’t exactly the same as previous years. Officials at the game were also communicating with other officials at Big Ten headquarters in Rosemont, 14 miles to the West. The Big Ten just built a massive new instant replay center in conference headquarters, meant to support in-game officials across the league’s new, coast-to-coast conference.

Along with a few other local reporters, I toured the facility last week. Here’s what I learned about what it is, how it works, and why:

Like just about everything else with the new Big Ten, the Replay Center is big

Housed on the first floor of the Big Ten HQ building just outside Chicago, the Replay Center occupies 2,000 square feet, 54 display monitors, 26,000 feet of cable, and 18 game monitoring stations. When you walk in, you almost think you’re entering a massive sports bar, only without any beverages, wings or loud music. Just TV after TV after TV.

You need a larger space for a few reasons. An 18-team Big Ten means there are just more games to keep track of, with broadcast windows starting at 11 AM local and now extending to the Formerly-Known-As-Pac-12-After-Dark window. For this coming Saturday, for example, Big Ten teams will host four games during the 11 AM window, another four at 2:30, one at six, two at 6:30, one at 9:00 and finally, Utah State kicking off against USC at 10:00 PM local. You want a big room just so every game can get the physical attention and space it requires from officials and supervisors.

And there’s going to be a fair number of people in the facility…but very specific people. Big Ten policy allows for replay supervisors, Collaborative Replay Officials, or CROs, (the folks who are monitoring replay for each game), Centralized Medical Observers, and when needed, conference IT and football administrative staff. If needed, the Replay Center also has a video hookup so broadcast partners can share a view of what happens in the replay center. If you watch Big Ten football games this season, there’s a decent chance you’ll see some Replay Center B Roll at some point.

But conspicuously absent from the permitted personnel list, I’m told, is Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, or other senior conference staffers who are not specifically involved with officiating.

So how does any of this stuff actually work?

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