Arbiter buys Zebra Ware
 

Anyone hear about this? A colleague who schedules in my chapter is reading the email he received last Friday. He hasn't forwarded it to me yet, but the gist is Arbiter is taking over after all seasons that have already started for organizations using ZW -- football, volleyball, etc. -- but others, like basketball, that haven't started will use Arbiter.

This is accurate.

I've been in communications with a few Zebra Ware customers who are looking at other options.

We (Reftown) are certainly happy to take on any Zebra Ware clients that are interested. We can have a new customer up and operational very quickly.

I was just talking about you an hour or so ago with a local assigner.

Thanks for that. Hopefully I'll hear from them.

We've moved a somewhat large basketball organization over in under a day including thousands of games already entered in Zebra Ware. They're up and ready to operate immediately...which is critical since their games start soon.

As they've looked at what we offer, they indicated they were very pleased at how much more Reftown can do beyond what they were used to.

Camron:

You will never get the OhioHSAA's business. Starting with this school year, the contracts for all games in all sports at all levels will be issued on ArbiterSports. And since all of the assigners in the MichiganHSAA use ArbiterSports, it has been a real complex mess for Mark, Jr., and I.

Between our OhioHSAA and MichiganHSAA assigners and Mark, Jr., college softball assigner, we each have 15 different groups for H.S. basketball, baseball, and softball, plus Mark's college softball assigner to keep track of assignments and blocked dates. And to make things even more complicated, Mark may get picked up by two more college softball assigners: one who has his own ArbiterSports group, and one who does not use ArbiterSports.

Oh well, I am retired and have to the time to be our social secretary when it comes to officiating and umpiring.

MTD, Sr.

Having all the groups on Arbiter is a POSITIVE, not a negative.

I dream, DREAM that we could get everyone here on one system.

Zebra Ware was awful. That was one positive about leaving Texas. And not having to deal with the UIL anymore.

I wonder what arbiter purchased? Existing client relationships? I'd be surprised if there was anything in Zebra Ware that they actually wanted to buy.

They probably bought clients. Can be a sound business decision if it's the right or big enough group.

Having all groups on one system can be a positive, but what that system is is certainly debatable.

Of course, I have my opinion and the feedback I get from those who have used both is pretty consistent with it.

That's what I figured.

They bought their clients and then made the sub-standard program go away. Nice.

I'm not opposed to having dedicated threads for assigning packages. I've moved off Bob's comments and one of Cameron's posts to a dedicated thread. This thread is a place where Cameron can freely post about RefTown and people can ask him questions and provide feedback.

Its always good to look at a competitor's way of doing things, but ultimately, they paid a competitor to go away. They didn't necessarily buy the clients since they can leave. They bought to have one fewer (or less??) alternative.