i have the fitbit flex. it fits into a band. i put it in my pocket to referee. high school game is about 2.5 to 3 miles. 5,000 to 6,000 steps. college game usually 3.5 to 4.5 miles. 7 to 9,000 steps. ive been to the track and worn it walking. it was right on. one lap 525 steps.( they say a mile is about 2100 steps. )

Four games averaged about 2.1 miles per game. I did in fact adjust the stride length to 2'9" based on the method FitBit reccommends to calculate stride length. While I was there, I noted that I have the FitBit Zip, the smallest device they make.

As far as meds Mark Padgett...a couple Advil and a foot soak did the trick. Not T's handed out and no Overtime (did have on 1 point game).

Like I implied before, it is unlikely you actually traveled 2.1 miles per game if you followed their stride setting method. It is designed for someone who is jogging/running and is taking a consistent stride throughout.

A referee does jog/run but also takes several smaller steps as well and they are all counted as full strides. So, if you set it for your jogging/running stride, it would overestimate the distance while refereeing....unless you jog from L-to-T/T-to-L and don't move once you're there. Such distance calculations are really only close when the stride is consistent.

It is very difficult to get an accurate average stride length for a referee to be used with what is essentially a fancy pedometer. That number could change substantially with each game....lots of fast breaks vs. a lot of half-court action. You can really only know the number of steps to any degree of accuracy.

Mileage Will Vary ...
 

Agree. However, it's not impossible to determine the actual mileage, but one must use another technique. Just breakdown a videotape of a game. We know various measured distances on the court, so it wouldn't be very difficult to determine how far an official actual moved. It will just take a lot of time, and patience, but it can be done. Anybody want to borrow my slide rule?

Regarding players, from various sources on the internet (below):

... nor did (John) Havlicek burn out as Cousy had predicted. The "man in motion," as he was dubbed in a book title, continued to run defenders into the ground. It was once estimated that he ran three to five miles per game.

There's an old wives' tale that the average NBA player will run five miles every game. Not quite. Many NBA teams have started using a system called SportVU, a specialized motion tracking system that enabling teams to get far more detailed stats about their players. In the 2012 season, the player that ran the farthest per game was Luol Deng of the Chicago Bulls, who averaged 2.72 miles per game. That's no where near the five mile myth, but considering how much of that is sprinting, it's still very impressive.

Basketball: 2.9 miles
Cutting-edge tracking technology called SportVU has allowed coaches and statisticians to track NBA player performance in real time, including the distance traveled per game. This is another generous estimate, averaging SportVU’s distance traveled from the top ten hardwood pounders. Running the most during the 2014 season was Jimmy Butler of the Chicago Bulls at 3.1 miles per game.

According to data from STATS, a global leader in the gathering and dissemination of sports information, it is possible for a basketball player to average around 2.72 miles per game. This number depends how much play time a person gets during a game and what position an individual is playing.

STATS collects statistics on athletes in a variety of sports using their ground-breaking tracking system called SportVU. Blair O’Donovan, a top strength and conditioning coach who has worked with high school, college and professional athletes, once used a sports watch GPS to informally track high school players. His experiment led him to conclude that the young men he clocked ran anywhere from 4.02 to 5.7 miles in a single game. However, in light of SportVU’s more advanced, detailed motion tracking capabilities, distances in the neighborhood of five miles are today being classified as little more than old wives’ tales.

Just remember Abraham Lincoln's famous quote, "Don't believe everything that you read on the internet". Our sixteenth president was a pretty smart guy.

It's also likely that when running, strides are much more than 2' 9". When I run, with a 34" inseam, my strides are a lot farther than 2'9". I'm not taking anywhere close to the 15.25 steps it would take to cover half court.

It's not exact science. It's a fairly accurate estimate. More important than whether you ran exactly 2.16 miles is that you're tracking the progress of your overall health and fitness. That's the purpose, which seems to be lost on some.

Upon further review...
 

I checked back on my settings page. The 2'9" is a walking stride. There is also a running stride setting. I haven't measured that yet but I'll enter it once I do. I don't really know how the device distinguishes between the two but it's there as an option.

Not lost on me, just pointing out to those who are set on figuring out a distance that they are not going to get an accurate distance no matter what they do.

Maybe it senses, with an accelerometer, the intensity of the activity and assumes running or walking from that.

Nevada:

Your PM cache needs some housekeeping.....