Scott Nagy with referee | Photo by Christian Peters | The Wright State Guardian
From the NFL’s replacement referees in 2012 to a rising number of assaults against officials since the pandemic, tensions between officials and the teams they call have never been worse.
These tensions have caused many officials in recent years to quit their jobs, which according to Barry Mano, president of the National Association of Sports Officials (NASO), could cause a crisis in all levels of sports and force some games to be canceled.
“We are suffering the biggest shortage ever in our history. There are not enough warm bodies coming into this business,” Mano said. “Right now, we’re at least 30-35 percent below normal registrations for officials. It’s a crisis, and that’s not a word I use often.”
Why the empty positions?
Despite officiating being a field that is a growing need in sports today, there are not enough new recruits coming in to start a career.
Refereeing offers a job where you can work nearly as little or as much as you want, a spot right in front of the action and steady pay. But the pressure that comes with officiating today has turned possible officials from the job.
“I think the issue now is that there’s not a lot of people that want to be [referees] anymore,” Pat McAfee, a sports analyst and host of The Pat McAfee Show, said in a recent show. “I don’t think it’s a desirable position.”
While officiating has been able to bring in recruits in recent years, the number of officials quitting due to berating from fans and coaches is far more than officials that enter the field.
“When 100 people come in to start refereeing in year one, by the end of year 70 have left. If we don’t address that problem, we can bring in as many people as we want, and it might get a little better, but not much better,” Mano said.
Several national sports official organizations will be meeting in Indianapolis next month to discuss improving recruitment, but until changes are made there will be a shortage of officials for the next few years.
“There’s not going to be an easy solution,” Mano said. “It’s going to take a couple of years at least to try and get back to square one.”
What to do
Fans complaining about bad calls may never go away, but to get officials to call a clean and fair game, it is important to separate the officials from the calls that they make.
“One thing that I’ll never do on a broadcast is criticize an official because they have very tough jobs,” Parker Testa, sports director for WWSU 106.9, said. “I will be honest and say that it was not a good call, but I will never criticize that official for making that call.”
According to Mano, officials don’t need to be loved by fans, they just need to be free to call a fair game.
“We’re not going out there to try and screw it up, we’re trying to get the play right in real-time and in very difficult circumstances,” Mano said. “We don’t need the love, either. We’re not going out there to get hugs and people applauding us.”
While the tension between officials and everyone else at a game will always exist, treating officials just a little bit better can go a long way in the world of sports.
