In Reply to: Is there a referee in the house? posted by lafong on January 30, 2026 at 08:35:22
I have several friends who have been basketball or football officials. There's a simple reason they did it. At the lower levels, it's an easy way to make some extra money. At the lowest levels of high school basketball, maybe $50 a game ranging up to around $100 or more for varsity games. Work their way up to college and it increases to several hundred a game for lower division games up to about $3000 per game Big-10 refs make.
As far as the examples you cite of the extreme examples of malfeasance, they are an extremely tiny percentage of all the thousands of games every year. Being criticized by coaches and fans for missed calls is just part of the job and easily ignored.