What company do you use for game assignments?

Terrapins Fan

I have little doubt that most will say Assign By Web, but what other companies are used?

How does the cost and the benefits differ?

Rich

Terrapins Fan wrote
I have little doubt that most will say Assign By Web, but what other companies are used?

How does the cost and the benefits differ?

You mean Arbiter? AssignByWeb, I believe, went away a few years ago.

icallfouls

RefTown is a great product! Lots of services available.

Run by Camron Rust

JRutledge

Rich wrote
You mean Arbiter? AssignByWeb, I believe, went away a few years ago.

Yep, went out of business a few years ago. I know because each assignor in my area had used AssignByWeb and in the middle of the season had to use Arbiter with the largest consortium in the country with Arbiter. We have used Arbiter ever since. Not happy about it, but we have little choice.

Peace

Terrapins Fan

You are correct. We went to Arbiter.

I had one friend tell me about officialassignor.com

JetMetFan

BV = none 😮

GV = RefTown

ECAC = Presto & Arbiter

And yes, it's a pain using four different methods to update my schedule.

BillyMac

We've been using Arbiter to assign games for eight years, for two years to rate partners. The only complaint that I know about is that partners can only rate partners, so Arbiter can't be used by officials to rate non-partners that they may have observed, i.e., varsity officials rating junior varsity officials. Many of us use the contacts feature to confirm games with our partners, and with school athletic directors, and we can also use the map feature to remind ourselves of directions to out-of-the-way schools that we may not have been to for several years. We also use Arbiter to send out "email blasts", and to produce invoices with our game assignment fees. We do not use Arbiter to pay officials. Our Arbiter fee is $1,900.00 per year.

ronny mulkey

I don't know how the Forum leaders feel about endorsements, but one of our very own has an excellent product - Camron Rust and Reftown. Our local association uses it and here local groups combine with other groups for post season purposes. That post season combination also uses Reftown because Camron was able to customize his process to accomodate these 6 local groups into one seamless larger group even though it was for a short period of time.

Arbiter is neither official friendly nor assignor friendly when compared to Reftown or any other smaller assigning product that we have used before Reftown. Involved with assigning for our group, I can tell you that Reftown is an excellent product. Another issue that you will want to consider - how available are those folks for technical type issues? Reftown gets high grades from us for response times and flexibility.

If are looking, you will want to put Reftown in the mix for consideration.

OKREF

The schools call the officials and are hired that way. Usually the AD, or coach calls.

Camron Rust

Thx for the props guys. Appreciate the complements.

As for the Chicago area, I had contacted them when AssignByWeb had gone under but they (or someone in the area) had essentially already decided they wanted Arbiter and never seriously considered anything else.

Brad

BillyMac wrote
Our Arbiter fee is $1,900.00 per year.

How many officials and games? Just curious.

bainsey

JetMetFan wrote
BV = none :eek:

I don't see how that's acceptable in 2013.

For me, I've known nothing but Arbiter.

SWMOzebra

Arbiter for 4 difference conferences, but BlueZebra for 1 conference.

JRutledge

Camron Rust wrote
Thx for the props guys. Appreciate the complements.

As for the Chicago area, I had contacted them when AssignByWeb had gone under but they (or someone in the area) had essentially already decided they wanted Arbiter and never seriously considered anything else.

We know. 🙄

And I bet you were cheaper.

Peace

Camron Rust

JRutledge wrote
We know. 🙄

And I bet you were cheaper.

Peace

Likely....$100 per 25 officials currently (was a little less back then).

JetMetFan

bainsey wrote
I don't see how that's acceptable in 2013.

For me, I've known nothing but Arbiter.

Believe me, it's more than a little aggravating.

JRutledge

Camron Rust wrote
Likely....$100 per 25 officials currently (was a little less back then).

Do not get me started. 😀

Peace

BillyMac

BillyMac wrote
Our Arbiter fee is $1,900.00 per year.

Brad wrote
How many officials and games? Just curious.

About 325 working officials. About 70 high schools (boys, girls, varsity, junior varsity, freshman), plus a few dozen middle schools. 4027 games, mostly all two person games, so about 8054 assignments.

BillyMac

BillyMac wrote
We've been using Arbiter to assign games for eight years ...

What's also nice about Arbiter is that some of our "mini" assignment commissioners also use Arbiter, and they can "see" our high school games and, thus, prevent assignment conflicts. The assigner for my Catholic middle school games actually lives in Florida. He sits on a warm, sunny, sandy, beach, with his adult beverage, with an umbrella in it, and uses his tablet computer to assign his Connecticut Catholic middle school games, without having to worry about conflicts with our high school games, because he can "see" our high school games. What a life.

Camron Rust

BillyMac wrote
What's also nice about Arbiter is that some of our "mini" assignment commissioners also use Arbiter, and they can "see" our high school games and, thus, prevent assignment conflicts. The assigner for my Catholic middle school games actually lives in Florida.

I could save you about $600 and do the same things. 😀