Big Baller Forfeits

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by so cal lurker

So, for those of you who do those club tournaments that aren't associated with a referee camp, do you call the games differently? My perception as a parent having sat through many of them is that referees have a much higher foul threshold in those tournaments than in HS games. Perhaps because they are jamming a game into 70 minutes and it won't happen if they actually call the fouls that happen?

Excellent observation.
If a tournament is going to have stop-clock games in a tight schedule and pay the refs roughly half of what the HS regular season fee is, then don't be surprised if the officials do about half of the work, or even as little as possible. Fewer whistles means games finish more quickly and as the officials are paid by the game, not the hour, they don't want to be out there any longer than they must.

You may now ask why doesn't that happen during regular HS games. The answer is that it does. It is only controlled by the amount of oversight directed to the officials. Normal HS generally has more observers, ADs, assignors, etc. than Summer AAU tournaments. This is one reason the high-profile Summer events like having the referee camps provide officials--oversight and observation of the officials. If they are being evaluated for future work, they won't slack off and a decent product results. I suspect the other reason is that the overall expense to the tournament organizers for the camp administrators/observers is cheaper than just paying the officials outright, plus it creates a layer of accountability. Now people of being paid to look at the quality of the officials working the games instead of just working the games. How do they afford that? Not only are the refs not being paid, but they are actually paying for this oversight!