Defining a Harried Assignor

[JetMetFan]

Originally Posted by BballRookie

I was thinking about this very thing over the last few weeks. We've had a torrent of summer ball weekends and I never leave feeling the pay is that great. I need to work for the experience. But, I can see how the more experienced guys will walk.

Here is a question: How hard is it to pull all the area officials together and form a union of sorts to ask for higher game fees? I'm not a union person as a rule(another talk for another day), but in our area literally 3 assigners could bring the entire basketball officiating world to a standstill. 25 bucks is high for a summer league game. 35 for junior high, 40 frosh/jv, 55 varsity. Why not say that NO summer league games can ever be done for less than 30? Will this break the tournaments?

This is thinking without knowing how the relationship between assigner and schools work, how often fees are approached, how hard it is to keep guys from breaking the line, etc. I don't know those things, but it just hurts me to think of the "true cost" of officiating once gas, car expenses, time, etc. are factored into things.

BBRook, take a look at my post on pg 1 of the thread. Organizing is the only way the fees can come up. I realize my area (NYC-Metro) is way above the norm but it got that way because organizations stood their ground. Basically, if you think you're worth $15/game that's what you're going to get. If you think you're worth $40/game, that's what you'll get...though it will be a hard fight to get there.

Sure, there are going to be rogue groups who'll work for anything but what we've found is, for the most part, they're not trained well and the product shows.

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

It's not just the money, it's the type of environment and competition that comes with venues that can't/don't want to pay officials decent compensation.

That's another huge consideration. If you don't care enough about your product to pay the officials a decent wage, where else are you cutting corners? Security, perhaps? It all factors into the equation, as well as the wear and tear on our bodies, vehicles, etc.