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CBS Holds a Bake Sale, Also Testing Bill Belichick's Pylon Cameras

Another channel has started to work on pylon cameras on the off chance that they'll be successful. Your move, NBC and Fox.

Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

Late in August, ESPN and the NFL announced that they would be working on introducing pylon cameras to offer additional footage by the goal line. New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick initially proposed the idea for these cameras, but was shut down on multiple occasions due to questions of funding.

"Maybe we could have a bake sale, raise some money for the cameras. We could do a car wash," Belichick said back in 2014. "We just spent however many million dollars on the replay system. I mean, there's a thousand cameras in every stadium, so if somebody spills a beer on somebody we have it on record, right?"

Well, it turns out that CBS- a close partner with Patriots owner Robert Kraft- had a bake sale of their own and have been testing out pylon cameras for select Thursday Night games with the Super Bowl in mind. Good for them.

The concept of a goal line camera is fairly simple- if a scoring play is in dispute, the pylon will have a front row seat of the event and can offer a better angle than any other camera in the stadium. Even if the pylons help make a better call once a week, it will be a great improvement for the sport and will help the trust in the product.

Hopefully these pylon cameras catch on and become a staple for these broadcasts. With ESPN, CBS, and some of the NFL Network on board, that just leaves FOX and NBC to step up with pylon cameras of their own.