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New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick watches warmups during a preseason NFL football game between the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers on Aug. 19, 2023, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In 2007, the NFL fined the Patriots $250,000 and Belichick $500,000 after the team was found to have videotaped New York Jets coaches’ signals outside of designated filming areas. Matt Radke/The Associated Press
Did the Canadian soccer team use drones to spy on their opponents? No way.
The news that Canada’s Olympic women’s soccer coaches flew a drone to spy on New Zealand players during practice isn’t the first time a high-profile sports team has used technology to secretly watch a rival team play.
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Some major league teams go to great lengths and employ creative methods to track rival players and team strategies to gain an advantage.
Sports teams have long used game replays to study opponents, and intercepting and trying to interpret team hand signals has been part of baseball and other sports, but the increased use of live video and other technology has prompted some sports leagues to blow the whistle when they see the methods going too far.
For example, football teams have been found to be illegally filming their opponents’ games. In 2007, the NFL fined the New England Patriots $250,000 and then-head coach Bill Belichick $500,000 after the team was found to have been videotaping the New York Jets’ coaches’ signals outside of designated filming areas. The team also lost its first-round draft pick.
In baseball, several teams have been found to have illegally used technology to steal signs from opposing teams: Major League Baseball fined the Houston Astros $5 million in 2017 and 2018 after it was found to have installed video cameras in the outfield to steal signs from opposing catchers.
The Astros were able to decipher the signals, sometimes by banging on trash cans, to tell hitters what pitches to expect. After the scandal came to light, the team managers were suspended and then fired.
The league also found in 2017 that the Boston Red Sox illegally used video technology to monitor the New York Yankees’ signals and that Red Sox trainers used Apple Watches to send messages to players in the dugout who, in turn, gave hitters signals about expected pitches.
After USA Today reported last year that American college basketball teams had years ago installed hidden cameras in their arenas to record opposing teams’ practices, the paper said the teams had come to an agreement to notify visiting teams if there were cameras in their arenas, turn them off and cap the lenses.
