What a referee assignor does: a guide for new assignors

The assignor decides which officials work which games, tells them, and makes sure each game has its crew. Around that sit three sets of responsibilities.

• To the league: every game covered by officials at the right level, problems reported early, and a record of who worked what so officials can be paid.
• To officials: assignments sent early with complete details, games shared out fairly, changes passed on promptly, and somebody to call when something goes wrong.
• To teams and clubs:officials who turn up, a contact when one doesn’t, and impartial crews, with no official working a game they have a stake in.

What an assignor usually doesn’t do

In most leagues the assignor doesn’t set the game schedule (the league or a scheduler does), doesn’t discipline players or coaches, and doesn’t rule on protests. Some assignors also handle pay, recruiting or training; others don’t. The split varies by league, so agree it in writing when you take the job.

• A league assignor. A volunteer or paid staff member assigns for one league or club, often while also refereeing or coaching.
• An independent assignor. One person, often an experienced official, is contracted by several leagues or schools and assigns from a shared pool of officials. Each league pays the assignor a fee and usually pays its officials through the assignor or directly.
• Association-run assigning.An officials’ association assigns its members to the games of the leagues it serves.

Some governing bodies certify, register or train assignors, and some competitions require one. Check with your state or local association before you start, especially if you’ll be assigning games beyond recreational youth play.

Whether you were appointed in the off-season or handed the job in week three, get answers to these before you assign anything.

From the league

• Who sends you the game schedule, in what form, and who tells you when a game moves or is cancelled.
• The fee for each division and position, who pays officials, and when.
• How many officials each game needs, by age group. Younger divisions often use one official; older ones a full crew.
• Who handles discipline, complaints and incident reports, and who you call on a game day if you can’t reach anyone else.
• What your budget or fee is, if you’re paid, and what the league expects in return.

From the previous assignor, if there was one

• The roster, with contact details and anything they know about each official: level, reliability, who they can’t be assigned with or to.
• Assignments already sent for upcoming games, and which have been accepted. Don’t reassign these without telling the officials.
• Any pay still owed for games already worked.
• Open problems: a complaint in progress, an official who was told they’d get more games, a club that wants a particular crew.

Then introduce yourself to the officials in one message: who you are, how to reach you, when they can expect assignments, and that their existing assignments stand.

1. Pre-season: six to eight weeks out

   Build the roster: who is returning, who is new, contact details, certification level and any conflicts of interest. Ask everyone for their general availability and how many games they want. Get the fee schedule and pay dates approved by the league, and write down the policies below.

2. Pre-season: two to three weeks out

   Get the game schedule from the league in a form you can work with. Check it for gaps: games with no time, no field, or teams marked TBD. Send the first weeks of assignments as soon as the schedule is stable.

3. The first weeks

   Expect more changes than at any other point: fields not ready, teams withdrawing, officials discovering conflicts. Watch your new officials closely and check in after their first games.

4. Mid-season

   Settle into the weekly routine. Once a month, look at who has worked how much and who has cancelled, and adjust before it becomes a complaint.

5. Playoffs

   Schedules are often confirmed late, so warn officials early that playoff assignments will come at short notice. Agree with the league how playoff crews are chosen, for example whether they go to the most experienced officials.

6. End of season

   Run the final pay run, close out any open disputes, thank officials, and ask who is coming back. Write down what went wrong while you still remember it.

A routine gives officials something to plan around. Here is one example for a league with games on Saturdays and some weekday evenings. Move the days to fit your schedule.

• Sunday or Monday: lock the games.Get the next week’s schedule confirmed by the league. Anything still changing gets assigned last.
• Monday: assign.Fill the hardest games first (top divisions, games with history), then work down. Check each official’s other games before adding one.
• Monday evening: send. One message per assignment or per official, with date, time, venue, teams, division, position and fee, and a reply-by time.
• Wednesday: chase replies.Contact anyone who hasn’t answered. Reassign declined games.
• Thursday: confirm.Every position should have an accepted official. Tell the league about anything you can’t fill.
• Friday: handle changes. Weather, field closures and last-minute dropouts. The cancellation process covers replacing someone at short notice.
• Saturday: game day. Keep your phone on. Note any no-shows and incident reports.
• Sunday: update the pay record.Mark who worked what while it’s fresh, including rainouts and crew changes on the day.

The scheduling guide goes through assigning and confirming in more detail.

Each of these will come up during the season. Deciding them in advance, and sharing them with officials and the league, means you apply a rule rather than make a judgment call under pressure.

• Assignment and reply deadlines. When assignments go out, and how long officials have to accept before the game is offered to someone else.
• Cancellation notice from officials. How much notice you expect when someone drops a game they accepted, and what happens after repeated late cancellations.
• Rainout pay. Whether an official is paid for a game called off after they arrived, before they arrived, or at half-time. The guide to rainouts and schedule changes covers the options.
• Conflicts of interest.Officials don’t work games involving their own child, their own team or a club they coach for. Ask about these at the start of the season.
• Assigning yourself.If you also referee, decide how you pick your own games. Officials notice when the assignor always has the best games. Some assignors publish their own game count alongside everyone else’s.
• Complaints.Who handles a coach’s complaint about an official, and an official’s complaint about a coach or sideline. Usually the assignor hears it and the league decides anything disciplinary.

Ask the league how long it needs pay records kept, and whether it needs anything from officials for tax purposes. That is a question for the league’s treasurer or accountant.

An independent assignor does the same job for each league, with a few extra things to keep separate and one thing to keep together.

• Separate fee schedules. Each league sets its own fees, and an official working for two leagues on one Saturday may be paid two different rates.
• Separate pay runs. Produce one pay record per league per period, so each league pays only for its own games.
• Invoicing, if that’s the arrangement. If the league pays you and you pay officials, invoice the league for the period with the game-by-game detail attached. Agree your own assigning fee in writing.
• Separate policies, written down.Leagues differ on rainout pay, reply deadlines and conflicts. Keep each league’s rules somewhere you can check them quickly.
• One view of each official’s commitments.The same official may be working games in two of your leagues on the same day. Unless every league’s games are in one place, you won’t see the overlap. The guide to avoiding double-booking covers how to check.

Assigning often falls to one person, who also takes every game-day call. Share it before it becomes too much: a second person who can cover game-day changes, or a split by division or age group, with one person owning each game.

Write down how you do the job as you go, so a successor or a stand-in can pick it up:

• The weekly routine and the deadlines officials expect.
• The policies above and the fee schedule.
• Contacts at the league, each field or site, and the local officials’ association.
• Where the roster, schedule and pay records are kept, and the logins to anything they need.
• Notes on officials that affect assigning: who is mentoring whom, who can’t work which club, who has asked for fewer games.

Ref Grid is built for one league or club. You add the games and officials, assign each position, review the drafts and send them. Officials accept or decline from a link in a text or email, with no account. Several administrators can work in the same organization, each with their own login, which helps when two people share the job.

For an independent assignor, there are limits to know about. Each account has one organization, and there is no switching between organizations. You have two options:

• Run all your leagues as one organization. An organization has one sport, so this suits leagues in the same sport. Use divisions or location names to tell the leagues apart. Ref Grid then warns you when an official you pick already has an overlapping game or another game that day, across all of them. It doesn’t check travel time between venues. The pay export covers the whole organization for a date range; the detail file includes division and location columns, so you can split it by league in a spreadsheet.
• Keep a separate account for each league. Each account is its own subscription. Pay and policies stay separate, but Ref Grid can’t see an official’s games in your other accounts, so it won’t warn you about conflicts between leagues.

The sports officials scheduling page covers what Ref Grid does in more detail, and the guide to assigning software describes what the other tools in this category are built for.