How many officials are there?

[AndrewMcCarthy]

Originally Posted by HossHumard

I must admit I’m a bit gobsmacked over the numbers you guys are throwing around. If JugglingReferee’s estimate of 1000 in Canada is close to accurate (I’d guess it is), and you use the 10 times rule for all things US/Cdn, than the 39,000 estimate posted for the entire US is FOUR times the ratio south to north of the 49th!

I'm not sure you can just use numbers like "the ten times rule" to compare north/south of the border. Football is more popular in the US- I'll go out on a limb and say a far greater percentage of high schoolers play. If you did a similar comparison for hockey you'd see the numbers skewed the other way.

[sj]

Using the 175 per million number which seems about right base on the states represented here that would put it at about 53,000 high school football refs nationwide.

[sj]

Using the data points we have given in this thread and going with the 175 per million number which seems about right base on the states represented here that would put it at about 53,000 high school football refs nationwide.