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[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.)