NBA Ref Schedule

[brainbrian]

Does anyone know what goes into the NBA referee schedule or possibly know someone to ask about it? I'm looking into doing a university research project.

I've read they're divided into 4 groups of 15 officials each? I've heard they do not call more than 3 games a week but also heard they do back to back days. Do they try to visit every arena at least once during the season or anything like that? Or can't see the same team twice within two weeks or anything similar? Anything else that you may know of that goes into their scheduling?

Thanks.

[Texas Aggie]

I think the best way to do this is to go through daily newspapers from last October through this April and get a game list for who worked and when and where. Time consuming, but you did say research! There also may be websites that have charted all this data.

[BillyMac]

Contact the NBA corporate office, or the NBA official's union, directly. I'm sure that they will have a few summer interns who would be more than happy to offer information for your research project.

[Victor74]

In simplistic terms here is how the NBA schedules it's officials.

Out of the 60 officials, about a third of them are crew chiefs. They are broken down into "teams" of 15 with a supervisor, but that mostly is for development and evaluating more than scheduling. In other words, it isn't just 15 officials in a group that are scheduled for games. An official can be on a crew with any other official outside of his group.

Crews no longer stay together for long periods of time. In the past, a crew of three could work a week with each other whereas now that isn't as common an occurrance.

Generally speaking, officials tend to stay within a region. So Sunday they work in Detroit, then Monday in Milwaukee. Wednesday they may be in Indiana and Thursday in Chicago. That doesn't mean that they can't go cross country if it becomes necessary. Nor does it mean they stay in that region.

Officials cannot work more than two consecutive days. Officials cannot officiate in the same arena within 15 days. Officials cannot work the same team more than 9 times in the year (regular season).

Crews are set up before the season, though most officials will work with every other official (save for a Dan Crawford working with Joe Crawford).

The trend is to try to assemble the best crews and work to their strengths and improve upon their weaknesses. So a crew will have a seasoned veteran crew chief, experienced official and rookie for example. The better the official, the more games scheduled. The weaker the crew chief is, the more games he'll work under a more experienced crew chief.

I am by no means an expert, but have a couple years of understanding and tendencies as I myself (as an odd hobby) "schedule" the officials. Feel free to send me a private message if have any more questions

[Jay R]

Originally Posted by Victor74

In simplistic terms here is how the NBA schedules it's officials.

Out of the 60 officials, about a third of them are crew chiefs. They are broken down into "teams" of 15 with a supervisor, but that mostly is for development and evaluating more than scheduling. In other words, it isn't just 15 officials in a group that are scheduled for games. An official can be on a crew with any other official outside of his group.

Crews no longer stay together for long periods of time. In the past, a crew of three could work a week with each other whereas now that isn't as common an occurrance.

Generally speaking, officials tend to stay within a region. So Sunday they work in Detroit, then Monday in Milwaukee. Wednesday they may be in Indiana and Thursday in Chicago. That doesn't mean that they can't go cross country if it becomes necessary. Nor does it mean they stay in that region.

Officials cannot work more than two consecutive days. Officials cannot officiate in the same arena within 15 days. Officials cannot work the same team more than 9 times in the year (regular season).

Crews are set up before the season, though most officials will work with every other official (save for a Dan Crawford working with Joe Crawford).

The trend is to try to assemble the best crews and work to their strengths and improve upon their weaknesses. So a crew will have a seasoned veteran crew chief, experienced official and rookie for example. The better the official, the more games scheduled. The weaker the crew chief is, the more games he'll work under a more experienced crew chief.

I am by no means an expert, but have a couple years of understanding and tendencies as I myself (as an odd hobby) "schedule" the officials. Feel free to send me a private message if have any more questions

I would disagree when you say that most officials will work with every other official. Crew chiefs don't work with crew chiefs except in the playoffs. Maybe rarely in a regular season game will two CC's be on the same game.

[APG]

Originally Posted by Jay R

I would disagree when you say that most officials will work with every other official. Crew chiefs don't work with crew chiefs except in the playoffs. Maybe rarely in a regular season game will two CC's be on the same game.

I agree with Jay R here...I can't remember the last time I saw two regular CC's working together in the regular season...much less regularly.