Until they make officials employees and start paying the other benefits, it is going to stay this way. The NCAA and the schools are not going to be willing to put all of this money into officiating program without a fight. It may change, but not anytime soon.

Peace

Cam,

I agree with you 100%. That is kinda what the outgoing supervisor of the MAAC does... He charges $75 to work two AAU games. He brings in roughly 75 guys
and hires 3 or 4. Have gone several times.....have no issues on how he operates.....

I got to hear a little about the "game" from an official who used to be in her conference. The official said the nonsense was enough to make her leave. She wanted to jump before she got pushed.


The only way I even come close to justifying that kind of cost is if you're sleeping at a college for more than two days and even then I'm iffy about it. The Big East used to hold its women's camp at three schools (American, Catholic and Univ. of Maryland) with officials staying in dorms at American and managed to keep the cost in the low 200s. Of course I don't know whether the conference subsidized some of the cost but it definitely made it easier on the wallet.

Money is paid to officials; you don't need "other benefits" for it to be publicly funded pay for work performed for a public entity and you can't shake people down for cash if they are seeking to perform public work for pay -- whether as an employee, a supplier or an independent contractor. If the 1099 has the name of a government agency on it, taking money for getting a person in a position to receive that compensation, with or without benefits, is a shakedown and a kickback. If the 1099 has the name of an athletic association on it, and that association charges public institutions for the service of providing officials, it's a shakedown and a kickback.

Yup... Played the game. I worked 13 games in 4 days. Not too bad of a camp. There were classroom sessions with former coaches one day, Dee Kanter another day and Debbie Williamson on the third day.

I got some information on the rules changes from Debbie in her classroom session that I'll post in the appropriate thread.

Way too many games to work in a camp, IMO. Especially if it is a camp used for getting hired by a college supervisor. By the time you've worked your 3rd game it's already known by the powers that be whether or not you are a truly viable candidate.

And that in a nutshell, is the real rip-off of college "exposure" camps. The CAMPER pays for the privilege to work 2-3 times as many games as needed. All the while the "clinician" is making huge bucks off of campers who stand absolutely no chance of getting picked up. The NCAA operates like a monopoly, but the individual conferences that endorse or tolerate this camp structure are just as bad. I don't know what alternative there is...but I know there has to be a better way.

Just a thought...what about the clinician must create attendance standards, the conference for whom "clinician" works must approve the list of campers and a camper can only attend the camp three times. If the clinician cannot determine if they are qualified to work games for that conference in three years two things are probably true; the camper is not ready and the clinician is either a bad judge of talent or just in it for the money

There were "rumors" back when about an assignor in this area. You had to attend at least 4 of his camps before he would seriously consider you and if you worked more than 3 games you were just a "camp body" to cover games. Don't know if they were true but I heard them several times for different people.

Battery Operated.....

The problem with your argument is 90% of all camps identify themselves as teaching camps.....although most everybody at a camp at the D 1 and 2 level is going there to "try out".....

If anyone goes to a camp run by a D1 super more than three times, then it is on that individual.....

My camp season is over. And I allowed Multi Sport to carry me through my last camp game of the year. :D

Let's take a look. 30 campers at $580 a pop. ($17,400)
Say each campers works 5 games, that's 150 slots (50 games) * $25 paid by the tournament director ($3750).

Say supervisor pays 10 observers $750 to show up ($7500).
Estimate 2 nights of lodging for camp staff ($3000).
Estimate food costs for pizza and beers ($1000)

That's $21,150 coming in and $11,500 going out. For a net profit of $9,650.

That's for a small camp. I've worked camps that charged $450 for 75 campers who've covered about 100 games. Do the math on that.

Yes, but they don't know that.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Downgrading first class tickets to coach, keeping the cash, but not declaring it as "income" is hardly a "scam". GMAFB.

This is a good point—and I don't think it even rises to the level of the NCAA. Many conferences are probably willing to fund officiating camps, but have their legal team advising them against it.

When you start training people that work for you that is one step across the line from contractor to employee—contractors are supposed to already be trained, at their own expense. I don't think any conferences are interested in having officials become employees—at least I have never heard any conference office personnel say it was a good idea!

The number of campers are probably closers to 50-60 unless attendance is way down since 2-3 years ago.

Not sure about number of games—it varies from tournament to tournament. The more campers, the better—because the games will be worked regardless of the number of officials on hand!

Pay for the observers seems high—but I am not sure.

Also, I would bet that they get at least some of the rooms free from the hotel for having the officials book there.

They are definitely money makers, but that doesn't mean that they are not also worthwhile. They provide a lot of value and certainly provide the only opportunity at present to get hired into D1 leagues.

I agree that the current system is not the best, but it will take one conference taking the lead and making big changes before anyone else does. Plus, the other conferences would have to see some advantage of making the change.

I could see some of the consortiums hiring officials as employees and limiting those officials to only working their games, limiting the number of games per week, etc. Much different ballgame with employees vs contractors, so I'm not sure that will happen anytime soon—but if it does, I would bet it would be in one of the consortiums with 3+ conferences, rather than a single conference.