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The "travel challenge" is two fold:
1) It's VERY difficult to catch a return flight from the Pacific Time Zone to the Central/Eastern Time Zones THE MORNING AFTER working a game to be in your next city/arena by 5:30pm for the 7pm tip-off.
+ Even if your 6am flight from LAX goes to Chicago, it doesn't arrive until noon at the earliest...and then you have to factor in airline delyas due to weather/driving to campus....you don't want to be known as missing games due to travel issues.
+ It CAN work however, I know a Midwest official who worked a game @ UNLV on a Saturday night, took a midnight flight to Chicago and worked a 2pm CT game at Illinois St on Sunday afternoon.
2) Even if you stayed out West and tried to piggy-back games, most of the conference play on the same nights (at least during the conference season). Thr/Sat leagues: PAC-12, West Coast Conf., Big West, Big Sky. Wed/Sat league: Mountain West. (there are other leauges, but you can research them yourself)
+ There are certainly exceptions to the scheduling, but leagues do this because of the cost savings to have a team play 2 road games on the same trip.
Several mid-major leagues have made adjustments to increase the number of "high profile" officials working their games: Mid-American Conf. changed their game dates to include Sun's and Fri's (general "off" days). The Missouri Valley created a "bonus pay" system: you give us 10 dates w/ 3 being Saturdays and will give you $500 extra per game. MANY other leagues have implemented a "tiered-pay scale" to attract guys...All of these strategies have worked and may be something that the Pac-12 and other leagues out West can implement to achieve their goals.
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