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[just another ref]

$50? LA is not worse than this.

One game? What took 3 hours?

[Nevadaref]

1. I started with a freshman game when I first joined an officials association. I had never done MS or youth ball. I worked an entire year of HS games before I ever worked a game with kids younger than HS age.

2. Is that $50 fee for 2-man or 3-man? If it is 2-man, then that's awful. If it is 3-man, then I can tell you that your local area assignors and schools agreed to take the prior 2-man crew fee and chop it three ways. That screws the officials, imo.
Where did you get your national percentile numbers? I'd like to see that chart/list.

3. You are correct on this point.

[SNIPERBBB]

Ohio you do every level but varsity until you are a class 1 official. Which you can qualify for after yout second season.

Some schools pay 50 for JV games here.

[UNIgiantslayers]

For a single varsity game, $75 is pretty standard in my area. Anything below that level is substantially less. Single varsity games happen very rarely, mostly in the case of inclement weather cancellations and they play the game on a Saturday morning/afternoon. We've had some pretty icy weather the past few weeks so they are still catching up with these single varsity games in this area.

[Pantherdreams]

There is a scale here for games but you have to get beyond varsity to be making more than 50 a game.

However you do get travel so long as you have to leave the town you live in, so often the travel pay is more than you get for the game. Officials in urban setting complain about not getting the travel money but can often get more games per week/ per on weekends than in rural setting,

[UNIgiantslayers]

Originally Posted by Pantherdreams

There is a scale here for games but you have to get beyond varsity to be making more than 50 a game.

However you do get travel so long as you have to leave the town you live in, so often the travel pay is more than you get for the game. Officials in urban setting complain about not getting the travel money but can often get more games per week/ per on weekends than in rural setting,

We only get mileage during postseason tournament games. A couple years ago, I got a call that they really needed someone to cover a game that was 2 hours away. The mileage check was bigger than the actual game check.

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

Where did you get your national percentile numbers? I'd like to see that chart/list.

Second hand through my association. It's affiliated with NASO which helped the association prepare for and brief a state district meeting back in the fall.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

Second hand through my association. It's affiliated with NASO which helped the association prepare for and brief a state district meeting back in the fall.

I think that any solution to pay needs to be a multi-year solution.

The problem with pay in Wisconsin (and I know this first hand from both sides of the process) is that schools/conferences give a $5 increase and then spend 10 years tabling discussion on officiating pay. I have meeting notes that show this.

When I moved here in 2002, we got $50 to $55 for a varsity game, 2-person.

Now it's 3-person and we're getting $50 to $85 for a game (yes, parts of WI pay $85. Note that the $85 is in the most northern, remote areas of the state where they replaced mileage payments with a higher fee).

Let's use $60 as a typical game fee:

Schools look at things this way -- we've gone from paying $120/game to $180/game -- that's a 50% increase. Over the course of a season we need to pay $1320 more (11 boys and 11 girls home games) for basketball officiating.

We look at it like this: I made $60 to work a game in 2006 and I make $60 now.

So there is at least 1.5 sides to this. But the $50 thing is a real problem, I'll agree.

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by Rich

Schools look at things this way -- we've gone from paying $120/game to $180/game -- that's a 50% increase. Over the course of a season we need to pay $1320 more (11 boys and 11 girls home games) for basketball officiating.

My intent was not to get hung up solely on fees, but to offer this as a comeback, let's assume each team has 12 players on it's roster. That's 24 per game. 24 players probably equates to about 36 parents in the stands. Assuming some other locals and non-student siblings decide to come watch, now we're at 50. So if you charge just one extra dollar at the gate, that's $50 of your $60 difference right there. Charge students a dollar or two as well, and you're easily over $60.

The reluctance to nominally increase admission and/or the temptation to keep it for booster program use is a real obstacle.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

My intent was not to get hung up solely on fees, but to offer this as a comeback, let's assume each team has 12 players on it's roster. That's 24 per game. 24 players probably equates to about 36 parents in the stands. Assuming some other locals and non-student siblings decide to come watch, now we're at 50. So if you charge just one extra dollar at the gate, that's $50 of your $60 difference right there. Charge students a dollar or two as well, and you're easily over $60.

The reluctance to nominally increase admission and/or the temptation to keep it for booster program use is a real obstacle.

Have you ever had a coach argue with you about throwing out a $5 cut baseball because of "his budget?" I have. I could hear the Twilight Zone music playing in the background.

Some teams have new uniforms almost every season, I get that. But I'm just saying what the schools think about this issue.

I will say this -- I made a proposal myself for the conference I'm affiliated with that I thought was fair -- and included a 5-year plan for increases and it passed unanimously. It isn't ALL the schools and conferences who are like this -- it's just some of them.

[so cal lurker]

Originally Posted by Rich

Some teams have new uniforms almost every season, I get that.

That may not be part of their budget -- and I'm guessing "not" if they get them every year. My son's school varsity gets new uniforms every year, but that's because of a deal with Nike (well, Jordan for hoops . . . he get's a lot of cool swag, too . . .) While my son goes to a Jesuit school, some of the Jordon sponsored schools are public schools from not wealthy areas.

(But I also don't think my son's league of private schools is cheap about paying the refs. My son's school even lectures the parents at the parent meeting about *not* yelling at refs, explaining that one of the biggest obstacles to having better refs, especially for frosh/JV, is that so many quit because it isn't worth the abuse.)

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by just another ref

$50? LA is not worse than this.



One game? What took 3 hours?

I was including the hour pre-game period.


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