This World Cup, You Can Watch the Game From a Ref’s Point of View

When you tune in to the 2026 World Cup, you’ll get a peek at something you probably haven’t seen before: an up-close live feed at what’s happening on the field from the referee’s perspective.

Broadcasts will incorporate a point-of-view captured feet away from the action by a tiny camera attached to the official’s headset, sitting just near their temple. The images are be beamed wirelessly to the broadcast booth, where the video is digitally smoothed in real time and incorporated into the televised program.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what the game looks like from a ref’s vantage point—whether you want to study your favorite player’s footwork or just critique the ref’s calls—you’re getting your wish.

Ref cameras have been used in broadcasts for a few years across major sports. “Ump view” is being used more and more often on MLB broadcasts to give viewers a true feel for the raw speed and movement of pitches. Both the NFL and NHL have dabbled in uses of ref cams to bring fans closer to the game, the former as early as 2018. But when we get to zoom in to see plays from the official’s perspective, what we’re seeing isn’t typically live. Broadcasters will show snippets during an instant replay or during the postgame show, but rarely if ever as part of the live action.

Soccer lends itself pretty naturally to the idea of a live ref cam. During a televised match, the main cameras are almost always set up in wide shots, so viewers spend most of the game far away from players. A ref cam offers a change of pace, bringing the viewer right onto the field.

The earliest iterations of video feeds from ref’s body cameras, both at the English developmental levels and in a 2024 trial in the German Bundesliga, were run on delays. They were mostly used for referee training and development. But in March 2025, the International Football Association Board (soccer’s worldwide governing body) approved the use of ref cam footage on live broadcasts, which happened for the first time at the 2025 Club World Cup. And while it may seem like a small distinction, the technological lift required of FIFA and its partners to make that footage available for live broadcast was significant.

The first challenge: reducing the latency in the video stream. It takes time—less than a second, but still enough time to notice—to beam glitch-free, broadcast quality footage from the refs on the field to the stadium’s broadcast hubs. The cameras the refs wear aren’t typical broadcast cameras with Ethernet connections. They have to transmit wirelessly across a stadium packed full of devices and brimming with wireless interference.

Johannes Holzmüller, FIFA’s director of innovation, tells me his organization tested a handful of wireless data systems across multiple locations, including planned World Cup venues like Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. They settled on a specialized 5G solution that wireless provider Verizon says uses high-frequency wireless bands for data.

Removing “jitter,” or the constant bouncing and sometimes motion-sickness-inducing effect created by a camera at the temple of a referee running, stopping, and spinning to follow the ball, was an even bigger puzzle.

“[Broadcasters] were telling us that they’d love to use [the ref cam] more often, but especially when the referee was running or sprinting, the footage was very shaky,” Holzmüller says.

That wouldn’t be tenable for an actual World Cup broadcast, so FIFA tasked tech partner Lenovo with creating AI-aided software to reduce this jitter to more manageable levels.

Simply defining this jitter effect and how much it should be tinkered with proved an early challenge. No one wants to watch raw footage from a camera that’s bouncing all over the place, but viewers also wouldn’t enjoy clearly manipulated, unrealistic video feeds where everything is smooth like a crappy video game. How do you find the sweet spot, then train software to maintain it?