All SWAC conference football games will have instant replay beginning with the 2019 season, according to conference commission Charles McClelland.
McClelland made the announcement Saturday during a call-in appearance to The Jaguar Journal radio show with hosts Reggie Flood and Perry White.
“All ten member institutions this year are going to be required to have instant replay,” McClelland stated. “The ADs and SWAs voted it in, and we moved it up for the year. So it’s not a test year, it’s not a pilot year, there’s a standard.”
McClelland indicated that the move to require member schools to incorporate instant replay is a step toward a larger plan. That plan is to ensure that the conference will have the necessary technology in place to secure a presence in the digital broadcasting space, with ESPN being the focal point.
“As we get everybody on the same platform with those technologies, now we can take all of those games and deliver those to ESPN or our own digital network where you can now see all member institutions whenever they play.”
According to McClelland, the conference is still one to two years away from all schools having the necessary technology in place to deliver content to ESPN’s digital broadcasting platforms.
Listen to the entire interview below.