BrewCityBall Radio's Inside The Al

[IWB]

BrewCityBall Radio's Inside The AL will be on Monday night - The Big East's Senior Associate Commissioner of Men's Basketball Stu Jackson will be with us!

[MU/Panther]

Look forward to the show tonight with Stu Jackson!

[MayorBeluga]

Jim - can you raise the issue of inconsistency in officiating this season? I'm curious to hear Jackson's take.

[MUfan12]

Jim - can you raise the issue of inconsistency in officiating this season? I'm curious to hear Jackson's take.

Also, can he verify if Cahill still has a feminine gait?

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Someone brought up how referees are basically free agents, working as many games as they can because they are all paid per game. Could you ask if the Big East has considered having their own officials and maybe paying them specifically to do Big East games during the conference season? While it might be a little more costly, the benefit in terms of knowing you have quality officials that are able to get a bit more rest and dedicate themselves to consistency in your conference would seem to be worth it.

[MayorBeluga]

Someone brought up how referees are basically free agents, working as many games as they can because they are all paid per game. Could you ask if the Big East has considered having their own officials and maybe paying them specifically to do Big East games during the conference season? While it might be a little more costly, the benefit in terms of knowing you have quality officials that are able to get a bit more rest and dedicate themselves to consistency in your conference would seem to be worth it.

Neither the NCAA nor the conferences would do this since once they become employees, meaning they get benefits. From the standpoint of the NCAA and conferences, economically they want refs to be independent contractors. That means they can do any many or as few games as they want.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

If they were contracted for 2-1/2 months of the season (Dec 31-March 15) it just seems like a viable option if it guarantees better officiating. I know there'd be a greater expense, but if you are giving benefits, wouldn't that allow you to pay them at a lower level? Get a crew of 9 core officials and 6 part timers. The 9 would work 3-4 games per week, the part-timers would fill in when you have more than 3 games in a single day. There'd be a total of 98 games (including BET) over roughly 11-12 weeks. Adding benefits during that time would be a nice incentive to keep them from doing other league games, maybe allowing you to get them at a lower game rate (though with benefits it would be a bigger expenditure overall I'm sure).

I definitely won't admit to knowing all the economics involved or what the league budget is, but it sure feels like it would be worth a little extra coin if it led to better quality and consistency in refereeing.

[TheSultan]

My top of mind estimate would be that having employee refs would cost about 120-40% more than the current situation to keep their take home pay the same.

Right now, refs work about six games a week on average. If they were employees, and you cut them down to three games a week, you would have to pay them more. You would also be on the hook for social security, unemployment, liability, workers comp, health care, etc. That might be easy for the big conferences to do, but the smaller ones? What about when they all start filing unemployment claims when the season is over?

On top of that, there is no guaranty that this would increase the quality of the refereeing.

[MU/Panther]

I hope Stu talks about what the conference thinks about the partnership with FS1 in terms of scheduling with dates and times. Last year, the coaches hated 2 games in 3 days, something they changed this year. What can we learn and change in year 3.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

My top of mind estimate would be that having employee refs would cost about 120-40% more than the current situation to keep their take home pay the same.

Right now, refs work about six games a week on average. If they were employees, and you cut them down to three games a week, you would have to pay them more. You would also be on the hook for social security, unemployment, liability, workers comp, health care, etc. That might be easy for the big conferences to do, but the smaller ones? What about when they all start filing unemployment claims when the season is over?

On top of that, there is no guaranty that this would increase the quality of the refereeing.

There's no guarantee, but I can see it being worth trying on a 2-year basis. If it doesn't work, go back to what sort of works now. But if it does, why not be the trailblazer in improving the level of refereeing in the sport?

[Markedman]

There's no guarantee, but I can see it being worth trying on a 2-year basis. If it doesn't work, go back to what sort of works now. But if it does, why not be the trailblazer in improving the level of refereeing in the sport?

I doubt anyone would think the refereeing would be improved just because they were only doing BE games.

Fans always have seen Refs as incompetent because they only really notice the mistakes.....and personalities of some will always rub fans and coaches the wrong way.

Mistakes would still happen and personalities would still rub people the wrong way........Not sure how the NCAA grades refs but maybe that is part of the problem.

I think it is just a tough job and these guys eventually forget over time that nobody is there to see them......

[Gato78]

I think they need to rotate the refs through the conferences during the season. It would make for more uniformity and breed less fan contempt because the fans won't be getting on a guy like Jim Burr as a result of a call he made a few weeks back (I did that one time pre-game and before I could finish he said "that wasn't my call"). Then a foul in the BIG EAST is also a foul in the ACC etc.