Is there a market for multiple tiered umpiring services?

[BigUmpire]

Is there a market for multiple tiered umpires?

Senior umps are billed at a rate higher that 1-2 year rookies regardless of age group?

Sound off.

[noumpere]

FWIW, that concept exists in D-1 basketball.

[JSam21]

The youth athletic association that I started umpiring with still does that to this day...

[noumpere]

I will add that many leagues pay more for "patched" umpires than for non-patched.  That, though, isn't always synonymous with "senior" and "rookies" as in the OP.

[grayhawk]

I've seen many "senior umpires" that aren't worth a dime more than those less experienced.

[UmpireFever]

Are we talking youth ball, high school, DIII-DI?

 

 

Should a guy that has been umpiring D1 baseball for 5 years, be paid more that a guy that gets released from AAA and moves into D1?

 

[Majordave]

Great idea for a discussion Jack. I like it.

My story:  There is a youth tourney assigner here that is always trying to get me to work his 13-14-15 yo USSSA tourneys. I'm elitist and don't like to work them because: A. of the low pay, B. it's F*#King USSSA and C. the coaches are mostly dads. He asked me why I keep declining. I told him. He then asked what it would take for me to work them. I told him to pay me a higher rate and let me pick my partners. In our discussion I told him that it's a slap in my face to expect to pay me the usual parks and rec umpire game fee that he pays untrained mooks when I've got a significant amount of high level umpire training and bigger game experience. I love the game and believe the lower level games deserve experienced and trained umpires but I wasn't going to work it for such low rates when I've spent a lot of my own money getting the best training I can find and afford. 

He said I was right and we worked out a favorable rate for the level of games and I am allowed to suggest my partners. I usually get the playoff/knockout games and championship games when I work for this guy. It works for me. I still wind up issuing an occasional warning and an ejection or two a summer because of the jackwagon daddy coaches who are clueless. But it is what it is. At least I'm fairly compensated when I drop down to work that level. 

My .02......YMMV. 

[Mudisfun]

In concept I think that idea has a lot of merit.

The issue is going to be that the pay-or is only going to be willing to come out of pocket X dollars for officials... and much of the time that amount barely supports paying for one umpire. So to make this work you now have to have a tier payment plan within your assigning group and get the less experienced umpires to agree to be paid less for what they will see as equal work or in some cases more work depending on whom you are assigned to work with. As @grayhawk stated there are lots of 'senior' guys who are just out there for a check and not bringing their A, B or even C game.

If you can put together a well staffed assigning group that puts lots of focus on training and development and then get your umpire staff to buy into that business model then you will develop a group that people want to work for as they will find intrinsic value in being a member. Without this buy in then another assignor is going to jump in, undercut the group and steal their officials with the lure of more pay but with little support.

My $.02

 

 

[MadMax]

No. Up front, all games within a league should pay the same. If a league wants to rate tournaments or post-season differently, and pay accordingly, that's the LD's perrogative, but the umpires – plural – assigned to a game should be paid exactly the same, regardless of seniority.

Now, what could be effective would be to pay a bonus based on number of games worked, feedback / evaluation reviews, and/or whether or not the umpire recruited and/or trained additional umpires. I can see where @Majordave is coming from, but I can recall several otherwise "senior" partners I've observed or worked with who conducted themselves worse than a rookie, because they should have known better.

Any association or confederation of umpires without a system of evaluation and progression will stagnate and rot from the inside (senior) out.