Today and for the rest of the NFL season, I want you to bow your heads in thanksgiving for the vastly underrated “Yellow Line“. It was ten years ago September the first down marker appeared in a regular season game for the first time, a game between the Ravens and Steelers on ESPN. Coincidentally, the game was famous for another reason, as it was the first time ESPN  mic’d up Ray Lewis for morning coffee.

But yea, about that yellow line…

Mike King, field-operations manager for Sportvision, which developed the technology, said that work actually begins the day before a game. Pan, tilt and zoom data is collected from three cameras, and a laser is placed in the center of the field to help calibrate the dimensions of the field. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to gather information for each camera.

Unlike the glowing puck before it, the Yellow Line has sustained long term success in broadcast sports. The only downside is that it causes that one really dumb friend (wife of a friend) to ask how they get that yellow line to switch so quickly on the field. I still haven’t had the heart to tell her it’s computer generated.

Send your things to patrick@joesportsfan.com, people. Enjoy the day of gluttony.