At a time when Major League Baseball umpires are tired of seeing their calls on ESPN, other sports are trying to be as transparent as possible. The Worldwide Leader and the Atlantic Coastal Conference aren’t actually asking you to empathize with officials; that would be ludicrous. But they’re attempting to give their viewers more access and behind-the-scenes looks at what goes into the process that’s often placed under a microscope.
This fall, the ACC and its longtime television partner are rolling out a new initiative that brings fans directly into the replay booth.
Starting this season, ESPN’s Friday night ACC games and ACC Network’s prime-time Saturday broadcasts will let viewers hear the real-time deliberations between the on-field referee, the press-box replay official, and the league’s command center in Charlotte, North Carolina, according to David Teel of the Virginian-Pilot.
It’s a first for college football, and it stems from two wildly confusing Miami games last season that left fans, coaches, and broadcasters all wondering the same thing: “What just happened?”
Both games — one against Virginia Tech and the other against Cal — were decided in the final moments on officiating reviews that lacked immediate explanation. In one case, a Virginia Tech Hail Mary that looked like a walk-off win was overturned after a six-minute review. In the other, a potential targeting call on Miami was waved off, setting up a comeback win. The fallout from those moments sparked a conversation between the ACC and ESPN about how to pull back the curtain.
According to Teel, the idea surfaced during a routine ACC–ESPN production meeting, when someone posed a simple question: What if ESPN rules analyst Matt Austin could actually hear the officials’ conversations during replay reviews, and explain them to the audience in real time? The league tested the concept late last season, liked what it saw, and decided to commit to it for 2025 fully.
“We really have nothing to hide,” said Michael Strickland, the ACC’s senior associate commissioner for football. “We’ve always been clear about who’s in the room and who’s authorized to get involved in officiating.”
That includes command center staff, such as Al Riveron and Mark Bitar, who serve as the primary voices during reviews. This new layer of access won’t cover every ACC game — production logistics make that impossible — but it’s a significant shift. And it’s part of a larger ESPN–ACC push to modernize the conference’s football coverage heading into a crucial media year.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.