Assignor Pay
 

I made a joke about becoming the assignor for our local HS group, and apparently some people thought that was a great idea. So I figured I'd ask y'all what the pay is for such a gig, and what are the pitfalls of such an activity.

Relevant facts: 16 Public HS, roughly 15 MS, 15 Private HS. No rec ball.

Questions:
What pay should I request? What is the minimum you'd take?
Main issues you people face?
Anything you'd care to share?

I've until after the season to accept the position, because quite frankly the current assigning system is a damn goat rodeo and I want my name no where near it until the following year.

It will vary widely between organizations. And by widely, I mean WIDELY.

There are a lot of variables.

How many levels? How many slots to fill? What happens with rescheduled games?

You probably need to figure out what makes the gig worth it.

There are a lot variables to this, but the following is simplified. 3 man for all varsity games, 2 man for all MS and JV games. Rescheduled games get pushed to another free date around here, anywhere from next day to 2 weeks.

16 Public HS, Roughly 15 MS, 15 Private HS

Assume JV & V for every school, B&G

Public HS: 32 V teams, 32 JV
Public MS: 60 teams (7th Grade is JV & 8th Varsity)
Private HS: 30 V teams, 30 JV

Assume 24 games per team, assume 9 games aren't assigned by us, leaves us with 15 games per team. And MS plays roughly 10 games.

930 Varsity Games, 2790 slots
930 JV Games, 1860 slots
600 MS Games, 1200 slots

2460 Games, 5850 assignments

There are other factors, such as all-girl schools, schools with no Girl's JV teams, some freshman teams. Playoffs, reschedules.

If I'm leaving anything out, please tell me. I have no idea what I might be walking into. Any thoughts on what you'd expect to paid for such a task?

Assignment Commissioner ...
 

My local board pays our assignment commissioner $31,920.00.

He assigns for about seventy high schools (boys, girls, varsity, junior varsity, freshman), and a few dozen middle schools (boys, girls).

We have about 320 officials on my local board.

We have an assistant assignment commissioner who assigns preseason scrimmages. His pay is $3,000.00 (he's also in charge of our evaluation process).

Our HS assignor is paid a game fee for each team's schedule that he assigns.

So if a school has boys and girls Varsity, JV, and Freshman teams, the assignor gets $88 + $88 + $67 + $67+ $67 + $67 to do all the games for that school.

Non-$$$ Considerations
 

One intangible or two that you might want to think about go beyond monetary renumeration. Does there exist an adequate pool of officials to assign to the games you'd be responsible for. If not, your role as assigner will be a frustrating experience from the start. Or whether, for the amount that you'd be receiving, you'd be able to evaluate and remain in touch with the levels of proficiency of the individuals in your assigning pool in order to match the most challenging games with the most proficient officials. Nowadays, some assigners are jumping into the business concerned only about gobbling up schools and conferences, then "filling slots", regardless of these concerns, and it's disbenefiting our vocation as a whole. Other assigners are going so far as hiring a trainer or training staff to enhance the skills of his/her assignees and identifying personally who's able and who's unable to do what.
Not disuading you. Only expressing some considerations that might come into play about which you might already be well aware.
Hopefully, important considerations like these will play a part in your decision whether or not to become an assigner.

Observations ...
 

Our local assigner is out every night observing officials (as well as using peer evaluations, and evaluations by trained observers). A few seasons ago he missed only one night, his grandson's birthday.

Our assigner gets 6% of every game fee. Regular season has about 2200 games.

Full story:

Our assignments are coming to us with anywhere from 72-24 hours notice. All assignments. This is frustrating the hell out of our refs, and we're starting to lose people.

We lack development, and our top talent is either old or electing a college-only schedule. We could keep the latter if we got our act together, but I'd say inside 5 years we won't be able to provide quality officiating to games that need them. I'm also one of the top officials, and taking this role might take me off the HS court, and that's a big hit as I work a lot of games for this group.

It's a multi-level problem that starts from the bottom, and we'd need several key reforms starting at recruitment, development, and retention. Something that the entire nation is struggling with. But if schedules got better, we could hold on to enough people to allow us to "bring up the bench".

'Nough Said ...
 

https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.n...=0&w=338&h=178

https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.o...=0&w=300&h=300

Here we have some JV assignors who were paid a few dollars a game. Then to cut costs it was dropped to 2000 per season. I think you are insane to do less than $5 a game.

Yeah, yeah I know. The ship is full of holes, but it isn't sinking. Not yet anyway.

Abandon Ship ...
 

I assume you mean your current assignor is giving out the assignments at that time. Or, do you mean your current assignor is getting the games from the schools less than a week before and then assigns them. That is...is it all on him or are there bigger problems?

Assigning is a lot more work than some may realize. Don't underestimate the work required.

It’s on him. The schools give the schedule out on time. And I’m here precisely to figure out how much I should be paid for this.

Smoke Filled Back Rooms ...
 

It looks like you service about half of the schools that we service so how about $15,000.00 for an opening offer?

Just don't push a hard bargain and end up like Jimmy Hoffa. I may have seen him at a 7-11 last week? Maybe not?

I'm confident you can do better than assigning officials 72-24 hours beforehand. I'm blown away by that.

I have no idea what you should charge. I just know that I'm about 60% full for NEXT SEASON already. It's not right that your officials find out they have games the same week on the regular.

Where Do I Begin
 

Please don't underestimate this job. It is a 24 / 7 job. You will be attached to your phone. If you are married, please have conversation with your wife. You will receive turnbacks at all hours. If you have 100 officials, you have 100 differnt reasons why guys officiate.

Questions to consider....

What is your turnback policy ??

If you have small college officials will you accept turnbacks so they can work a D3 assignment ???

Do you value availability or ability more when assigning???

These are a few questions to ponder, I will post more as we continue this thread.

I've spoken with the current assignor and the guy who quit before him. Apparently, the commissioner has to approve all assignments. This is what is holding up the entire operation. The guy who quit last year would fill out 1-2 months of the schedule, but none of the assignments would be approved ahead of time. Compounding this issue, during the week of the game, changes would be made by the commissioner.

Armed with this new info, I'm going to decline to be apart of this madness. I appreciate the advice of everyone who had something to say.

I would guess that, to a large degree, the fee is already set -- by the customs and practices in your area. Asking what others earn across the country won't be of much help. Instead, you need to figure out whether you are willing to do the work required for the fee being offered.

It's kind of like officiating fees -- just because BM gets $93.17 for a game in his corner doesn't mean I can get that where I work.

Yup. I was also here to learn stuff about assigning, like the guy who told me I'd be married to a phone for the entire season. Learning that someone gets $31,000 for 70 schools was invaluable. I was picturing $5,000 originally, but right now I wouldn't take the job for less than $12,000.

Let me do my job!
 

Why have an assignor if the commissioner ultimately sets the schedule? We are currently having this battle in my organization -- the 3 presidents (elect, current, and past) want to approve all games. The bulk of our members agree that we should trust the guys we are paying to do the schedule and if they are screwing it up the board can replace them. Unfortunately, some presidents/commissioners just want too much power.

Administrators only really care that when they call the assigner, the assigner responds promptly later that day. Besides rescheduling a game, they have buses to worry about, notifying coaches and everything else in their day.
Whether Cam Rust and Billy Mac work the game or Raymond and Nevada Ref is really irrelevant to an AD. It's high school basketball and some guys are better than others.

Commissioner for us doesnt touch assigning. THAT IS WHAT THE ASSIGNER IS FOR!

That would be the first thing I would fix if you took it.

Four Corners ...
 

Entire State of Connecticut: Varsity Fee: $98.47, Sub Varsity Fee: $63.89 (Junior Varsity, Freshman, Middle Schools).

We're always looking for good officials. Anybody interested? Your two person mechanics have to be impeccable.

Different system here in Virginia. You must belong to an association to officiate VHSL games, and the associations each have a commissioner whose main function is that of assigning as far as the state is concerned. In addition, the constitutions of most (if not all) VA organizations state the commissioner is responsible for negotiating all contracts with schools/conferences. We elect executive boards that are responsible for day-to-day operations of the association. The commissioner/assignor is supposed to be working FOR the association and its members, but in reality they are the face of the organization and determine much of the strategic and long-term planning.

There are at least 2 associations in VA where the organization is actually owned by an individual, and I believe those commissioners are chosen by the owner if the owner himself is not filling that role.

This is the issue I'm starting to suspect. I'm not sure we can fix that. Not in a pretty manner anyway. We don't have "voting rights" in my group. As Raymond mentioned, we're owned by one guy, and he calls the shots.

"we're owned by one guy, and he calls the shots."

Let him do the assigning in the first place (not just final approval), with turnbacks, canceled/rescheduled games, last-minute replacements, late night phone calls about problems, etc., and see how long that arrangement lasts.

Unless you can fix that, you're going to face exactly the same problems as the current and previous assignors. It may not be a headache worth getting into unless you can get (in writing) an agreement that he as to make his say some number of days before the games and that you are free to release them if he has not.

And I'm not sure I'd even do it for $12,000 as you're considering.

That's why I've made the decision to turn down any possible offer. Unless by some miracle they cede control of the assigning to the actual assignor, it's a figurehead position.

But your grammar can be flawed.

As can be your formatting. :D

Spellcheck ...
 

Stupid spellcheck.

If God intended us to make spelling errors why did he allow Al Gore to invent spellcheck so that a robot can make spelling errors.

That's really weird because I didn't do the formatting manually -- I clicked the icons in the posting software.

TOO MANY COOKS IN THE KITCHEN....People need to learn to stay in your own lane:mad::mad:

In my area, the assignor is not paid by the schools or conferences. Paid by the officials at $4.00 per game by each official working that game. Same assignor fee for both JV and Varsity!

Yeah no kidding! Just ask Rich. In Wisconsin he assigns officials 72-24 years in advance.



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I just signed a contract to officiate a game in 2023.


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How does that make any sense? That's like 3 years away, and for all I know you could retire by then or move out of state.

If I get asked to be an observer down the road, I might be interested in doing that, but I am not interested in assigning, because I do not want to deal with complaints from coaches about the officials they get, or from officials about my assigning decisions.

$$$$$$$$$
 

Can't speak for other parts of the country but where Iive ( Mid Atlantic ), this job should pay anywhere from $26,000 to $32,500......

I think Northern VA qualifies as Mid-Atlantic....:D

One Day At A Time ...
 

I could be dead by then. Survived one heart attack, don't know it I'll survive the second.

Of course one could always get hit by a bus.