How to avoid double-booking referees

A schedule with only start times can’t show an overlap. A 9:00 and a 10:30 look fine until you remember the 9:00 runs to 10:45. Put an end time on every game, and base it on how long games actually run, including the time officials need afterwards to finish up.

• Soccer: two halves, halftime and a few minutes of stoppage. Use the half length for the age group in your rules.
• Basketball: the clock stops, so a game takes much longer than its playing time. Use the slot the gym is booked for.
• Baseball and softball: no game clock. Use the time limit plus the inning that is still being played, or assume at least two hours if there is no limit.

When you’re unsure, assume the longer length. A gap that turns out to be generous costs nothing, and one that turns out too short means a late or missing official.

Two games at different venues can be double-booked without overlapping: the first ends at 10:30, the second starts at 10:45, and the drive is 25 minutes. Set a minimum gap and apply it every time:

• Same field or court: the scheduled turnaround is usually enough.
• Same complex, different field: allow time to walk over and for the first game to run late. Fifteen to thirty minutes is a reasonable rule.
• Different sites: the drive, plus the time before the game you expect officials to arrive, plus a margin for the first game running long.

Write the rule down, and give the same gap to every official. Then the answer to “why didn’t I get the 11:00?” is the rule.

A schedule that was clean when you sent it stops being clean the moment a game moves. A 9:00 game moved to 10:30 can now sit on top of an official’s 11:00 at another site, and neither you nor the official may notice.

Each time a game moves, check every official on it against their other games that day before you confirm the new time with them. If the move creates a conflict, the official needs to hear about it from you, in the same message as the new time. The rainouts and schedule changes guide covers the rest of a reschedule.

Many officials work for more than one league, for school games, or for a tournament on the same weekend. You can’t see those games, so you depend on what officials tell you.

• Ask on your availability form which other leagues or assignors they work for, and which days those games usually fall on.
• Ask them to tell you as soon as they accept something else for a date they gave you, instead of declining your game later.
• Say whose responsibility it is. An official is the only person who can see all their games. Put it in your policy that accepting a game means they have checked it against their other commitments.

When two people assign, for example one for the younger divisions and one for the older ones, each can book the same official from their own copy of the schedule. Neither copy shows the other’s games.

• Keep one schedule both assignors edit, such as a shared spreadsheet instead of copies passed by email.
• Split the work by date, division or venue, so each game has one owner.
• Run the overlap check on the whole schedule, not just your half, before either of you sends.

Youth officials often still play. Adult officials coach, or have children on a team. Their own games are the commitments most likely to win, and they are not in your schedule.

Ask at sign-up which teams each official plays for, coaches or has children on, and keep it in your officials list. When those teams publish schedules, check them against your assignments. The same information covers conflicts of interest, since a parent usually shouldn’t officiate their own child’s game.

Run this every time, before assignments go out. It takes a few minutes on a weekend’s slate.

Doing it in a spreadsheet

These formulas fit the games & assignments sheet in the free spreadsheet template, where date is column A, start_time B, end_time C, official_name I and assignment_status J. They work in Google Sheets and Excel. Add three helper columns after notes (O, P and Q), put these in row 2 and fill them down:

=ROUND(B2*1440,0)

=IF(C2="",O2+120,ROUND(C2*1440,0))

=IF(OR(I2="",J2="declined"),"",IF(COUNTIFS(I:I,I2,A:A,A2,J:J,"<>declined",O:O,"<"&P2,P:P,">"&O2)>1,"OVERLAP",IF(COUNTIFS(I:I,I2,A:A,A2,J:J,"<>declined",O:O,"<"&(P2+30),P:P,">"&(O2-30))>1,"TIGHT","")))

Column Q shows OVERLAP when the official has another game that day at the same time, and TIGHTwhen the games are less than 30 minutes apart. Declined rows and open positions are ignored. The rows don’t need to be sorted for the formula to work, but sorting by official and start time makes the flagged pairs easy to read. Ignore TIGHT on back-to-back games at the same field or court, where no travel is involved.

Change the 120 to the length you assume for your sport, and the 30 to your gap rule. Working in whole minutes avoids small rounding errors that spreadsheets make with time values. If columns O and P show times such as 12:00 AM, the spreadsheet has copied the time format from column B: format them as plain numbers. Column Q is right either way.

1. 1. Decide which game the official keeps

   Usually the one they confirmed first, or the one that is harder to cover. Ask the official if it’s not obvious.

2. 2. Release them from the other game in your schedule

   Open the position before you start looking for a replacement, so the schedule shows the game is short.

3. 3. Tell the official

   Say what changed and that the decision came from you.

   Hi Sam, I booked you for two games that overlap on Saturday, my mistake. Please keep the 9:00 at Harborside, Field 2. I’ve taken you off the 10:30 at Millbrook Park and I’m finding someone else for it. Thanks.

4. 4. Fill the open position

   Follow the same order as any late dropout: shortlist, one person at a time, record the yes. The last-minute cancellation process has the details.

When you pick an official for a position, Ref Grid warns you if they already have a game at an overlapping time (“Overlaps”) or another game the same day (“Also working”), and lists officials without conflicts first. The warning doesn’t stop you assigning them. Drafts, sent assignments still waiting for a reply and accepted ones all count. Declined assignments and cancelled games don’t.

If a game has no end time, Ref Grid assumes a default length for your sport, on the long side of a typical game, and marks the warning as based on that assumption.

It doesn’t check travel time between venues, so the gap rule above is still yours to apply. It also knows nothing about games your officials work for other assignors or organizations, or about their own teams.

When you move a game’s start time or venue, the officials who were sent it get the old and new details. The notice doesn’t tell them whether the new time clashes with another game, so check each official on a moved game against their other games yourself. More on the assigning workflow: sports officials scheduling software.