[Raymond]

Originally Posted by BballRookie

I was thinking about this very thing over the last few weeks. We've had a torrent of summer ball weekends and I never leave feeling the pay is that great. I need to work for the experience. But, I can see how the more experienced guys will walk.

Here is a question: How hard is it to pull all the area officials together and form a union of sorts to ask for higher game fees? I'm not a union person as a rule(another talk for another day), but in our area literally 3 assigners could bring the entire basketball officiating world to a standstill. 25 bucks is high for a summer league game. 35 for junior high, 40 frosh/jv, 55 varsity. Why not say that NO summer league games can ever be done for less than 30? Will this break the tournaments?

This is thinking without knowing how the relationship between assigner and schools work, how often fees are approached, how hard it is to keep guys from breaking the line, etc. I don't know those things, but it just hurts me to think of the "true cost" of officiating once gas, car expenses, time, etc. are factored into things.

Been fighting that battle here in regards to AAU. Sometimes you are working a regulation game with a 2-man crew for $23/game. I work when I choose and no more than 3 games. I do it strictly to prepare for camp or to just to get on the court. They built an AAU complex 4 years ago and didn't even have the decency to build locker rooms. Originally we were told that we could utilize the bathrooms (which the players still do) but we did put our collective foot down about that on the very first weekend it opened. We were given 2 adjacent rooms and some chairs. But if there is a camp in town those rooms get very crowded.