Supporting Sports Officials and Preventing Abuse

Body Cameras in Sport - Supporting Sports Officials and Preventing Abuse

The KS4 is a small, unobtrusive body camera featuring our most advanced capabilities, designed to suit game play scenarios with simple record activation and secure mounting, while supporting remote field conditions for grassroots sports officials.

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Verbal, physical and threatening abuse towards officials, even young referees under the age of eighteen, seems to have only increased since the return of grassroots level sports post-lockdown with new research suggesting it's reached a crisis point.

According to a 2017 survey conducted by the National Association of Sports Officials, 87 percent of the 17,000 referee participants suffered verbal abuse in their role as officials. Thirteen percent said they had been subjected to a physical assault before, during, or after a game. That’s almost one out of every seven officials claiming abuse of some sort. Since then, there has been a growing trend in sports official shortages and especially at the grassroots level. NASO estimated in 2022 that 30 percent of officials had not returned since the pandemic – and of those, between 20 and 25 percent are expected to never come back. Since March 2020, NASO’s membership has dropped from 29,000 to 23,000.

Reveal body camera solutions assist in reducing the number of incidents in grassroots sports by deterring verbal and physical aggression. Should a situation become heated, our KS4 camera can record an independent account of events. This helps improve the confidence of sports officials and their overall safety and wellbeing, while simultaneously reducing turnover and supporting the training of new and young officials.

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Front-Facing Screen: This signature Reveal body camera feature has a proven calming effect on people being recorded on both sides of the lens and maximises transparency with the public. When faced with heightened tension on the pitch, our camera helps give confidence to players, coaches and spectators that decision-making and actions remain clear.

Match Ready: The KS4 is solidly built with unbreakable security, ultra-low light and a full-match battery life of 2.5hrs. It comes with ruggedised casing to ensure maximum performance even in the toughest conditions such as heavy rain. This robust design, paired with the world's leading evidence management software, makes our body camera system the go-to solution for grassroots sports officials.

Intuitive Operation: We have always put design at the forefront of our product philosophy. Our one-touch red sliding switch activates the camera with a single, quick and simple action, making it extremely easy for officials to operate at a moments notice. Plus with pre-record, footage is captured up to 2 minutes before the switch is activated to give a complete picture of incidents that may have taken place.

Designed for the Field: The KS4 supports game play in more remote locations by facilitating footage uploading by WiFi through a light touch action for review by other parties. More advanced functionality such as GPS coordinate capturing gives additional information on camera usage and allows for locations to be tracked for enhanced incident investigation.

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3 Reasons Sports Officials Are Choosing Reveal

De-escalate violence and aggression

Reveal body cameras are designed to calm situations before they escalate. By displaying footage on the front-facing screen in real-time as it is being recorded, the behavior of those on both sides of the lens is modified and transparency between officials, players, coaches and spectators is maximized. When appropriate, the screen can also be used to view footage on the pitch or field without needing a smartphone or a PC.

Improve transparency and accountability

Body-worn cameras enable the capture of first-hand video recordings and the gathering of indisputable evidence for increased transparency, accountability, and accurate incident reporting.

Increase confidence on the pitch

Equipping officials with the body-worn cameras to deter verbal and physical abuse will not only improve their confidence in terms of feeling supported, but knowing action is being taken contributes to their overall health and wellbeing. Officials can also use the cameras as a learning tool by reviewing how they themselves handle incidents.