Wow, memories. In 1998 I worked on the FIFA World Cup graphics, and two guys on the team were developing a camera player tracking and stat acquisition system. Back then, raw CPU power was a real limitation; the fastest PCs were PII 333 Mhz and they just couldn't track automatically 22 players from 4 cameras (one atop each corner of the stadium).

In the end the system was almost working, however we needed two people watching the TV stream and clicking on players to identify them when the automated system lost track. However it provided already tremendously detailed stats, but unfortunately nobody really cared :)