Booking HS Varsity contests
 

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 am part of an association that contracts out with the county school systems. As far as I know fees are negotiated by our scholastic commissioner and school system administrators and must be approved by our board.

Same goes for rec leagues covered by our association. Fees are negotiated between the league administrators and our rec commisioner and must be approved by the board.

I do not know what you mean by "find on your own." We have assignors that work for conference and they give us games for the most part. The conferences set the fees individually for the most part as well and no we do not individually negotiate what we are paid. Many assignors are officials and they try to get higher fees based on what they know who will and who will not work their leagues.

Peace

A mixture for me. I work in three conferences with assigners who give me the games. I also work for other schools where I get the games directly from the athletic director. They pay what they pay; if an official doesn't think it's enough they can choose not to work there. I don't get any games from my local association. The small schools still generally assign their own officials in my area. It's more work drumming up those games, but I also like having control over where and when I want to work. When you work for a conference assigner you go where they want you to or you won't be getting games for very long. For baseball I only work for one conference assigner; everything else my partner and I get on our own.

I have to schedule every game each year with schools athletic directors. Some schools pay what they pay, while others will ask what we want. I typically tell the schools to treat us fair and if they ask, I'll send them the average we're receiving from all schools we work. This works pretty well.

"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.

Our association assigns all varsity games and negotiates game fees and mileage rates for all officials. Some outlying schools still assign their own officials for sub-varsity games, but all varsity regular season games and the vast majority of tournaments are assigned by the association.

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.

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].

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.

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

I Know A Guy Who Knows A Guy ...
 

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".

Like this guy.
 

Big Time Mini Commissioner ...
 

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.

http://ts2.mm.bing.net/images/thumbn...cc727f05846bac