Booking HS Varsity contests

JRutledge

SperlingPE wrote
"find your own" >>>> contact the schools and contract games directly with the school. You negotiate your fee directly with the school.

I get games (6-10 games a season) from one conference that come from an assignor. Otherwise, I book all my own games and negotiate the fees for those games.

Even the games that I get from a school, I have never negotiated the price. The school has a fee and we either accept that fee or we do not do the game. Some might offer more for a certain game or a tournament, but we do not make demands on what we should get paid.

Peace

Adam

JRutledge wrote
Even the games that I get from a school, I have never negotiated the price. The school has a fee and we either accept that fee or we do not do the game. Some might offer more for a certain game or a tournament, but we do not make demands on what we should get paid.

Peace

That was my experience with the small schools in Iowa as well. "Here's what we pay, take it or leave it." Not that I couldn't have tried to negotiate, but that's just not how things were done then and there.

26 Year Gap

In VT, the assignors assigned all varsity contests and a majority of sub-varsity. Before I got moved up, I probably did half of my schedule through school ADs and the rest was assigned. It was my choice, as I wanted to go out of my immediate area to work with other officials and get seen by other officials. The first year after I did the majority of my games this way, I got promoted.

Here in FL, all games are assigned at all levels by booking commissioners. Even MS [Jr High].

SperlingPE

I don't make demands on fees. Most schools ask what the fees are and I give them a rate based on the contract (varsity/varsity, jv/varsity, single varsity game) and distance to the school. If they don't like it, they usually let me know and counter with what they are willilng to pay and I usually take it. I am not holding them up, but if they ask I will give them an answer.

BktBallRef

SperlingPE wrote
How many HS Varsity officials find your own contracts?
For those that do, do you negotiate your fees?
How many rely on associations or assignors to give you games?
Are the fees set by the schools, association, or you?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions. I doubt anyone does.

BillyMac

We have a local IAABO board. We hire a commissioner who assigns for about seventy high schools in our little corner of Connecticut. He also assigns many high school scrimmages, many middle school games, and some off season AAU games.

Travel, recreation, CYO, some high school scrimmages, some middle school, many AAU games, etc. are assigned by several "mini commissioners".

26 Year Gap

BillyMac wrote
We have a local IAABO board. We hire a commissioner who assigns for about seventy high schools in our little corner of Connecticut. He also assigns many middle school games, and some off season AAU games.

Travel, recreation, CYO, some middle school, many AAU games, etc. are assigned by several "mini commissioners".

BillyMac

26 Year Gap wrote
Like this guy.

I work for one of these "mini commissioners". He assigns Catholic middle school games, boys, and girls, at three different grade levels, for about fourteen different schools.

Now get this. These games are in my little corner of Connecticut, and he now lives in Florida. He uses Arbiter, and he can "see" our high school games to prevent conflicts. When I'm freezing my butt off, here in Connecticut, I always imagine him sitting on a Florida beach, sipping a drink with an umbrella in it, using his laptop to assign games.

26 Year Gap

BillyMac wrote
I work for one of these "mini commissioners". He assigns Catholic middle school games, boys, and girls, at three different grade levels, for about fourteen different schools.

Now get this. These games are in my little corner of Connecticut, and he now lives in Florida. He uses Arbiter, and he can "see" our high school games to prevent conflicts. When I'm freezing my b**** off, here in Connecticut, I always imagine him sitting on a Florida beach, sipping a drink with an umbrella in it, using his laptop to assign games.

He might be on a golf course, though. The Arbiter works pretty well except for via the phone.

jbooth17

No assignor in my little slice of SE Ohio. Being a newish (3rd year) official, I'm still working my way up the ladder as far as getting games go, so I take what I can get. Fees, I take what is offered. It's not really about the money anyway.

By the way, great forum. It's a daily read for me.

eyezen

I live on the border between rural outstate MO and the exburbs of the St Louis metro area. When I first started and was working small school JH Frosh and varsity games from the small schools to the north you had to hawk your own games with the AD's which especially when trying to build a varsity schedule was a pure nightmare. The most common problem was AD 1 would call and offer you say 4 dates. OK you take them. Then AD 2 calls and offers you 4 dates. Well it always seemed half of them were the same dates. It would only get worse from there. My schedule would always have holes in them and be inconsistent. Then I joined the association to the south that the local big school conference assignor works from. SO much better. I don't have to go hawking my own games. When going to a site all I have to worry about is referring the game, not whether so and so wants me back. To get better games, you just have to improve your game. To those that say you have no control, well you still do at least as far as dates are concerned, you just block them out. Location, yea you're kinda at the mercy of the assignor, but to me that doesn't really matter when everything is between 20-50 minutes anyway. For two years I would still take a few games from up north but it got to the point that wasn't even worth the hassle. I've never looked back. If you have a choice, to me, there really isn't one. The best thing about my situation is my HS assignor and my college assignor work really well together (technically he is still a part of our association). So as I advance and get more and more colleges dates I don't have to worry about my HS assignor holding a leash on my career goals.

SNIPERBBB

jbooth17 wrote
No assignor in my little slice of SE Ohio. Being a newish (3rd year) official, I'm still working my way up the ladder as far as getting games go, so I take what I can get. Fees, I take what is offered. It's not really about the money anyway.

By the way, great forum. It's a daily read for me.

Theres a couple of assignors in SE Ohio for some of the leagues like the SOC and SEOAL. Though the SEOAL assignor only does varsity league games. If you don't have a crew your SOL for varsity games.

jbooth17

SNIPERBBB wrote
Theres a couple of assignors in SE Ohio for some of the leagues like the SOC and SEOAL. Though the SEOAL assignor only does varsity league games. If you don't have a crew your SOL for varsity games.

That's the thing, I'm right in the middle of TVC country where the AD's do all the assigning themselves. It's ok though, I'm still learing as I go and hopefully will work my way up the ladder eventually.