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Yes. During an October 2020 Scottish Championship livestream, an automated Pixellot camera repeatedly followed assistant referee John McCrossan’s bald head instead of the football. The error pulled viewers away from the action in Inverness Caledonian Thistle’s 1–1 match against Ayr United.
What happened during the match?
Inverness Caledonian Thistle used an automated camera system for its home livestream against Ayr United. As the system tried to track the ball, it repeatedly panned toward McCrossan and followed him along the touchline. Reports said viewers missed portions of play while the camera was pointed at the assistant referee.
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Nearly 2,000 supporters watched the stream, according to The Press and Journal. The match ended in a 1–1 draw, STV News reported.
Why did the camera follow his head?
The camera was an automated Pixellot system designed to track the ball. In this incident, it failed to distinguish the ball from a visually similar object: the assistant referee’s bald head. The available accounts describe the tracking mistake, but do not explain the precise technical cause or identify the algorithmic behavior behind it.
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Inverness had moved to automatic production and ball tracking for its streams, with Stream AMG identified as the streaming partner by Europa Press. That report said the club had completed two successful tests in the preceding 14 days. Successful tests did not prevent the system from failing during the live match.
Which company made the camera, and what did it say?
Pixellot made the automated camera system. After the incident, the company told STV: “We are aware of the issue with linesman and we are already working on improving this for the next game.” The statement acknowledged the tracking problem and said work was under way to address it.
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How did the club respond?
Club chief executive Scot Gardiner joked that he would ask visiting managers to wear bonnets “to take away one element of surprise for our state of the art artificial intelligence system.” He also described the fault as an early teething issue and said the league was aware of it and working on it, according to The Press and Journal.
What the incident shows about automated sports cameras
This was a documented tracking failure, not evidence that automated sports cameras generally cannot follow a match. It illustrates why a system needs to distinguish the ball from lookalike objects and keep tracking reliably as people and play move through the frame. Assessing a camera system more broadly would also require information about human override, latency, performance in changing light and camera angles, and reliability across matches. The 2020 incident does not provide comparative performance data for other vendors.
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