[Drake]

Interesting read on the NFL's yellow first down line birth.

The large conference room full of ESPN executives was silent as Jerry Gepner and I finished presenting a simulation of a yellow, electronic first down line for football telecasts in May 1998. Finally, the silence was broken.

"Can you really do it?" one said.

We nodded.

"Can you have it ready for this NFL season?" another asked.

I paused slightly, and silently gulped. "Yes, but only if we start right away," I said.

Jed Drake, the pioneering, innovative head of remote production for ESPN, replied, "If you can really do it by September, and we can do it with you exclusively, we're in." They never even asked how much it would cost.

Our company, Sportvision, had opened its doors four months earlier. Backed by several venture capital investors, with New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon as the lead, our concept was to apply advanced technology to sports media. Three of us from News Corporation and Fox Sports -- Gepner, a TV production expert, engineering guru Stan Honey and I (the business person) -- had been inspired by Stan's invention of the glowing hockey puck technology the previous year for Fox, technology which we licensed upon leaving the company in exchange for an equity interest for News Corp.

We had a long list of ideas that we felt could enhance the television experience for fans in a variety of sports. Near the top of the list was an electronic first down line, an idea that had been contemplated for many years (a patent had been filed around the concept in 1978). Fox Sports chief David Hill, one of the most creative and groundbreaking executives in the history of sports television, had mentioned it once to Stan, and John Madden had raised the idea with Jerry.

The reason why it had never been done was that no one had yet figured out how to insert, in live television, a virtual line that appeared to be under the players' feet as if it were painted on the grass -- and have that line stay in perspective as the action swirled around it and the cameras panned, tilted and zoomed. As soon as we opened for business, Stan and his small team of engineers immediately set out to determine whether they could create such a virtual line.

By early March, they felt confident it could be done. We then created a simulation tape to show the NFL broadcasters what we were proposing to do. We experimented with various colors and settled on yellow. The four NFL TV rightsholders at the time were Fox, CBS, ABC and ESPN. We presented the tape to all of them -- starting with Fox since they were a shareholder.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl...#ixzz2ZQ9adxVM