Where can I umpire all year around?

[Sportalien5]

Hi everyone, 

I've been umpiring for 10 years now baseball and softball all age groups. I really enjoy it a lot. I want to start umpiring all year around though. I'm on the east coast and where I live there's no activity Dec-March. Does anyone know of any leagues that go all year around? Maybe in Florida or California. 

[umpstu]

8 hours ago, Sportalien5 said:

Hi everyone, 

I've been umpiring for 10 years now baseball and softball all age groups. I really enjoy it a lot. I want to start umpiring all year around though. I'm on the east coast and where I live there's no activity Dec-March. Does anyone know of any leagues that go all year around? Maybe in Florida or California. 

Always something happening in SoCal and Az.

[dumbdumb]

per google. you can probably check out the softball at least in the Tampa area and that would include Clearwater, St. Pete, and further south in Bradenton, & Sarasota.

See one softball league started in the middle of october and runs to thru first week of january.

then a winter league probably runs through the first week in march till baseball and softball start up again, maybe baseball at end of feb.

MLB starts first of march. and i was not checking travel league baseball. and like in arizona, you might could wave at the MLB guys if you go to a game.

oh yes kids and cubs play at some point.

[KenBAZ]

The metro Phoenix area has games year round and a shortage of umpires. We have the spring training facilities for half of MLB to use 10 months of the year. No place has as many opportunities to work as here.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[umpstu]

1 hour ago, KenBAZ said:

The metro Phoenix area has games year round and a shortage of umpires. We have the spring training facilities for half of MLB to use 10 months of the year. No place has as many opportunities to work as here.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 

And those fields are incredible.

[lawump]

South Carolina has something (even "just" travel ball) from end of January to the beginning of December.  Basically, the weeks around the holidays are the only time that something is not going on.

[MadMax]

I was facing much the same option / decision 6 years ago, and my esteemed colleague @KenBAZ and several highly placed umpires encouraged me to try Arizona. I now spend approximately 8 months per year here in the Phoenix area, 4 months back “home” in the Midwest on tour with an independent pro league, and doing just baseball and soccer, I do ≈ 350 – 400 games per year. Granted, that number is trending down because I’ve reached a point in my career where I’m placed almost exclusively on 60-90 games of 7 inning / 2 hour or 9 inning / 3 hour, or in soccer, full 80 (HS) or 90 (FIFA) minute matches. 

You have the additional “skill set” for softball, which is (or can be) highly lucrative. 

The CoL is lower here in Arizona than neighboring California, and likely Florida. The saturation is … denser(?)… here, with many more baseball venues within no more than a 45 minute drive, tops. Of course, Tucson, Las Vegas, LA and San Diego are within manageable driving distance should an event need umpires there. 

Florida may be more appealing because of the adjacency to “home”, and variety and quantity of amateur baseball levels (ie. College) and softball events. Orlando is an amateur sports mecca (especially girls / softball).

Don’t overlook Texas. Perfect Game just broke ground on a massive new complex in Texas. The only flaw to Texas is the distances involved between venues and services. 

[Sportalien5]

11 hours ago, KenBAZ said:

The metro Phoenix area has games year round and a shortage of umpires. We have the spring training facilities for half of MLB to use 10 months of the year. No place has as many opportunities to work as here.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 

Where can I find these opportunities? Is there a website? Do they have week day tournaments as well and weekend tournaments? Thanks

[Sportalien5]

Hi everyone, 

I've been umpiring for 10 years now baseball and softball all age groups. I really enjoy it a lot. I want to potentially make it into a career along with officiating other sports. I am on the east coast and where I live there's no activity Dec-March. Does anyone know of any leagues that go all year round? Maybe in Florida or California. 

[noumpere]

16 minutes ago, Sportalien5 said:

along with officiating other sports.

That's your answer, right there.  Officiating other sports helps you with baseball (and vice versa), and helps prevent burnout.

 

Of course, it's tough to make it a career if you are doing it only at the amateur level.

[Stk004]

Phoenix is probably the best place for amateur baseball year-round

[SH0102]

I agree about the career thing…unless you can make MLB or at least minors so you can do high level D1 college, umpiring will be your second job, not career.

Ive actually done the Math, I can make as much umpiring college and amateur baseball, along with wrestling (my other cert for HS and below, not college) and youth stuff like soccer, basketball, volleyball, year-round, as I do my normal day job.  But the equal pay (and more fun) would come at the cost of my family and retirement.  Officiating is evenings and most money is to be made on weekends.  If I officiated every weeknight and all day events Sat and Sun, I could make as much, but I’d never be home when my wife is free and kid is awake, and I’d have no pension or health care.

Now, my college games pay $225-300 for a DH bc I’m D2 and D3.  Guys who do Big Ten, ACC, etc, can make $40k or more in a 4-5 month season if they do a season of those games , but you had to be AA or AAA umpire to get there typically, so that means pro school, years in the minors, etc.

I applaud your passion and hope you keep it up, but if you are “career or bust”, I fear we will lose a good, passionate, official, and we don’t want that.

Keep getting better, work your way up to whatever level you can, and give back.  If you get good, there is money to be made running camps and clinics for newbie umpires

[Velho]

6 minutes ago, SH0102 said:

If you get good, there is money to be made running camps and clinics for newbie umpires

^^^ That there. I think that's good advice. Getting to any substantial income would be a hustle of putting multiple things together including that and the other newfangled blogging, vlogging, and what nots. 

[SH0102]

39 minutes ago, Velho said:

^^^ That there. I think that's good advice. Getting to any substantial income would be a hustle of putting multiple things together including that and the other newfangled blogging, vlogging, and what nots. 

 

[Velho]

24 minutes ago, SH0102 said:

Heck, even if you arent the best but a good organizer, you could hire good umpires to run camps…50 guys pay $200, that’s 10 grand, even if you pay out 8 grand to instructors and facility fees, you make $2000 in a weekend to do planning and overseeing

Exactly. That's what I do with LL... but the organizers don't get paid... nor I as one of the instructors... wait... actually, my company pays LL for my volunteer hours...something's off here... 

[dumbdumb]

18 hours ago, Velho said:

Exactly. That's what I do with LL... but the organizers don't get paid... nor I as one of the instructors... wait... actually, my company pays LL for my volunteer hours...something's off here... 

v man-- looks like that good organizer stuff is right up your alley. do i see a future assignor in waiting. that can be quite lucrative. just dont tell them they cannot ever eject if needed or they are basically fired/shunned from any more work. and then let's extrapolate. i wiil go the school route. 10 high school sports (varsity, JV), boys and girls at $150 assigning fee at each level for each sport to the schools. So. 3,000 per school. get a wide area of 50 schools. make officials pay an assigning fee (flat right up front for the year or game by game). oh la la. quite lucrative if you can work it. notice, no travel ball is included. they can probably make their own fortune. remember, there is more coverage/accountability on unsportsmanlike conduct of players, umpires, and school personnel/, which hopefully means less incidents like those recent hockey ones, or the baseball one in Tennessee, Tennessee couple years back if you go with the schools. Also note that no freshman or middle school was mentioned above.

[Mudisfun]

To answer your original question... 

Pretty much anywhere in So Cal will let you officiate year round, and not only baseball. We have pretty much every sport here, especially with Pay for Play travel teams. Arizona is also a good choice, but when it was a 117 in Arizona this summer, it was 85 here at home in Orange County with a nice breeze coming off the ocean. Guess where I would rather be geared up? 

Snow? Rain? What are those things?

[beerguy55]

Cuba  

[JonnyCat]

For the vast majority of amateur umpires/sports officials, it's not a career path, nor will it ever be. It's a part time, usually minimum wage or slightly better, hobby. You'll never be able to make money that will afford new cars, a mortgage, health insurance, retirement, etc. It's just not that kind of a job. Unless you have some other form of income, (other job, retirement or investment income, pension, spouse with a well paying job), it's going to always be poverty city. I live in a big city with year round officiating opportunities in various sports, and every single person I know that officiates full time as their sole source of income, looks like they live out of the back of their car. Not bashing anyone for their choices, it's just the way it is.

I realize there are some exceptions, but they are rare. The college guys that are making decent money have paid their dues and took a long time to get there. In our area, most of the new guys breaking into college get only a few games each year, and those guys all have other well paying jobs. It takes awhile to make good D1 money. And even then, it's not that great unless you can get a large amount of games.

I've done the math every which way, too, and it doesn't pencil out. In my area, HS varsity pays $83.00 per game. If you're able to do 100 HS games in a season, which is a lot of games (pretty much a game every day, we don't have too many DH's), that's only $8300.00 gross. You may be able to pick up some other games through youth ball (usually at $60.00 a pop), but your time is limited during the HS season. Say you can do 500 games per year, which is a sh!t-ton of games, at an average of lets say $75.00 per game. That's only $37,500.00 per year, gross. Even if it was $100.00 per game, it's still not enough to afford a decent lifestyle in this day and age. Even the minor league guys will tell you that they are living in poverty. And yes, you have to file and pay taxes, too.

Do what moves you, but know the realities of what you are getting into. Maybe you can make a little more doing other sports, but in most areas with year round opportunities, the cost of living is too high to be able to live comfortably with only officiating income.

Most people are better off to develop a career with good pay, benefits, retirement, and officiate on the side. My 2 cents worth.

[SH0102]

10 hours ago, JonnyCat said:

For the vast majority of amateur umpires/sports officials, it's not a career path, nor will it ever be. It's a part time, usually minimum wage or slightly better, hobby. You'll never be able to make money that will afford new cars, a mortgage, health insurance, retirement, etc. It's just not that kind of a job. Unless you have some other form of income, (other job, retirement or investment income, pension, spouse with a well paying job), it's going to always be poverty city. I live in a big city with year round officiating opportunities in various sports, and every single person I know that officiates full time as their sole source of income, looks like they live out of the back of their car. Not bashing anyone for their choices, it's just the way it is.

I realize there are some exceptions, but they are rare. The college guys that are making decent money have paid their dues and took a long time to get there. In our area, most of the new guys breaking into college get only a few games each year, and those guys all have other well paying jobs. It takes awhile to make good D1 money. And even then, it's not that great unless you can get a large amount of games.

I've done the math every which way, too, and it doesn't pencil out. In my area, HS varsity pays $83.00 per game. If you're able to do 100 HS games in a season, which is a lot of games (pretty much a game every day, we don't have too many DH's), that's only $8300.00 gross. You may be able to pick up some other games through youth ball (usually at $60.00 a pop), but your time is limited during the HS season. Say you can do 500 games per year, which is a sh!t-ton of games, at an average of lets say $75.00 per game. That's only $37,500.00 per year, gross. Even if it was $100.00 per game, it's still not enough to afford a decent lifestyle in this day and age. Even the minor league guys will tell you that they are living in poverty. And yes, you have to file and pay taxes, too.

Do what moves you, but know the realities of what you are getting into. Maybe you can make a little more doing other sports, but in most areas with year round opportunities, the cost of living is too high to be able to live comfortably with only officiating income.

Most people are better off to develop a career with good pay, benefits, retirement, and officiate on the side. My 2 cents worth.

Quick Math:

An official (let’s do baseball only for now) living in a year round baseball setting, can do one game a day M - F (evening), let’s say $60 a pop.  Weekend tourneys can do 4 games a dat Sat and Sun, also $60 a pop.  That’s $780 a week, x 50 weeks (take out major holidays), that’s almost $40k a year.  Most starting teachers make $30k so it’s doable.  And yes that’s everyday, but for five days a week you’re working 2 hours plus some drive time.

Summers however can net more. Where I live, tourneys are Thursdays - Sun, 4-5 games a day, so can net more during those months.

Do college?  I disagree about “new guys only got a few games”.  Last year was my first year doing college and I had to turn away games bc I have a day job and I was getting offers every single day.

But I digress, on weekdays, I made $225-300 doing a college DH (better than the 60 mentioned above for a weekday).  Sometimes did a single D2 game paying $190, not bad for 3 hours work plus driving.

I officiate wrestling in winters bc where I live, there is no winter baseball.  Used to do HS until realized youth is where the money is at.  HS tourney pays $250 for all day Friday (4-11pm) and all day Saturday (8am - 7pm). Youth pays $30/hour under table and runs 8-9 hour days on Saturday and Sunday.  There’s $500 for same two days of work.

I know People who foregoing doing HS basketball for $75 a game bc they can go do CYO or YMCA games for $25 a pop that are 40 mins each and crank out 4-5 of those in one weekday evening (usually run like (5-9pm) and 8-10 on a weekend.  Still only $100 on weekday but if you’re netting an average of $100 per day, doing child’s work (CYO/ymca) you’re making same as a teacher 

As I mentioned though, it’s a grind, and doesn’t have insurance or retirement, and you’re working evenings and weekends, prime hours for family life or social life.

But you can easily net 40k without doing high level ball and only working a couple hours a day during week and all day weekends.  If you have a supportive spouse who has benefits for you to be on, could make it work.

And to your question about other sports, yes, they make more.  I did a D3 baseball DH, made $225, was 7 hours of baseball.  The field hockey official at same school, both started at noon (game 1 and field hockey).  She was paid $225 for the 1 hour and 10 min game, same D3 school.  Lacrosse pays even more, games are about 90 mins.

[kylehutson]

To add to this...

1. Not only do you not have insurance, but as an independent contractor, you don't have workers comp, either. So let's say you get hurt while officiating. You don't get any time off work so you're not getting paid, you don't get your medical bills reimbursed, and you don't even have medical insurance (at least through this job).
2. While you can deduct a lot of expenses from your taxes (and I highly suggest you do), you also have "self-employment tax" - essentially the same as paying both halves of FICO, currently 15.3% on top of your "normal" income taxes

 

[JonnyCat]

8 hours ago, SH0102 said:

Quick Math:

An official (let’s do baseball only for now) living in a year round baseball setting, can do one game a day M - F (evening), let’s say $60 a pop.  Weekend tourneys can do 4 games a dat Sat and Sun, also $60 a pop.  That’s $780 a week, x 50 weeks (take out major holidays), that’s almost $40k a year.  Most starting teachers make $30k so it’s doable.  And yes that’s everyday, but for five days a week you’re working 2 hours plus some drive time.

Summers however can net more. Where I live, tourneys are Thursdays - Sun, 4-5 games a day, so can net more during those months.

Do college?  I disagree about “new guys only got a few games”.  Last year was my first year doing college and I had to turn away games bc I have a day job and I was getting offers every single day.

But I digress, on weekdays, I made $225-300 doing a college DH (better than the 60 mentioned above for a weekday).  Sometimes did a single D2 game paying $190, not bad for 3 hours work plus driving.

I officiate wrestling in winters bc where I live, there is no winter baseball.  Used to do HS until realized youth is where the money is at.  HS tourney pays $250 for all day Friday (4-11pm) and all day Saturday (8am - 7pm). Youth pays $30/hour under table and runs 8-9 hour days on Saturday and Sunday.  There’s $500 for same two days of work.

I know People who foregoing doing HS basketball for $75 a game bc they can go do CYO or YMCA games for $25 a pop that are 40 mins each and crank out 4-5 of those in one weekday evening (usually run like (5-9pm) and 8-10 on a weekend.  Still only $100 on weekday but if you’re netting an average of $100 per day, doing child’s work (CYO/ymca) you’re making same as a teacher 

As I mentioned though, it’s a grind, and doesn’t have insurance or retirement, and you’re working evenings and weekends, prime hours for family life or social life.

But you can easily net 40k without doing high level ball and only working a couple hours a day during week and all day weekends.  If you have a supportive spouse who has benefits for you to be on, could make it work.

And to your question about other sports, yes, they make more.  I did a D3 baseball DH, made $225, was 7 hours of baseball.  The field hockey official at same school, both started at noon (game 1 and field hockey).  She was paid $225 for the 1 hour and 10 min game, same D3 school.  Lacrosse pays even more, games are about 90 mins.

Not sure what part of the country you live in, but teachers in my area make way more than 30K. Factor in health benefits, retirement, PTO, sick leave, it is much more.

I never said that you couldn't make 40K a year just officiating, but it's never as much money as most people say they make. Again, how many games can you realistically physically do each year? People claim they can work every day. But do they really?

You can't compare being an independent contractor (read= self employed) to a teaching profession. You're incorrect about netting 40K, it is gross pay, not net. As Kyle said, as an IC, you have to factor in taxes, health care, and retirement. So even at 50K gross a year, there's still no comparison. 

And yes, I'm self employed, have been for 30 years. And if you think grossing 50K a year being self employed is big money, it's not. You're better off to work a $20-$25 per hour job with benefits. 50K gross being self employed is nothing. You're way below the poverty line.

Again, people can do whatever they like, but don't delude yourself in thinking that amateur officiating will ever pay you big money. Yes, you can make some money, but never on par with a good career or a good business. I realize that I live in an expensive city. Officiating full time in my area with no other source of income, will never pay the bills.

You can spin it however you like, but trying to officiate as your only source of income is a recipe for poverty. As you get older, things like health care and retirement become that much more important. I'm not stupid enough to kill myself doing hundreds of games for sh!t pay and no benefits.

If you could make big money amateur officiating, we wouldn't have the shortage of officials plaguing the country right now.

 

[SH0102]

3 hours ago, JonnyCat said:

Not sure what part of the country you live in, but teachers in my area make way more than 30K. Factor in health benefits, retirement, PTO, sick leave, it is much more.

I never said that you couldn't make 40K a year just officiating, but it's never as much money as most people say they make. Again, how many games can you realistically physically do each year? People claim they can work every day. But do they really?

You can't compare being an independent contractor (read= self employed) to a teaching profession. You're incorrect about netting 40K, it is gross pay, not net. As Kyle said, as an IC, you have to factor in taxes, health care, and retirement. So even at 50K gross a year, there's still no comparison. 

And yes, I'm self employed, have been for 30 years. And if you think grossing 50K a year being self employed is big money, it's not. You're better off to work a $20-$25 per hour job with benefits. 50K gross being self employed is nothing. You're way below the poverty line.

Again, people can do whatever they like, but don't delude yourself in thinking that amateur officiating will ever pay you big money. Yes, you can make some money, but never on par with a good career or a good business. I realize that I live in an expensive city. Officiating full time in my area with no other source of income, will never pay the bills.

You can spin it however you like, but trying to officiate as your only source of income is a recipe for poverty. As you get older, things like health care and retirement become that much more important. I'm not stupid enough to kill myself doing hundreds of games for sh!t pay and no benefits.

If you could make big money amateur officiating, we wouldn't have the shortage of officials plaguing the country right now.

 

My wife’s first teaching job paid $26k, mine paid 30k.  No way do first year teachers make “way more” where you live.  Even in NYC, one of the most expensive cities to live in America, starting pay is in low 40s.  Once you have a few years and a masters, you make a lot more.

And I said in two different posts about no insurance or retirement.  

[JonnyCat]

17 minutes ago, SH0102 said:

My wife’s first teaching job paid $26k, mine paid 30k.  No way do first year teachers make “way more” where you live.  Even in NYC, one of the most expensive cities to live in America, starting pay is in low 40s.  Once you have a few years and a masters, you make a lot more.

And I said in two different posts about no insurance or retirement.  

Seriously. You're going to tell me what teachers make in my area when my wife works at a high school and has spent the last 30 years working at the 2nd largest school district in California?

[SH0102]

6 hours ago, JonnyCat said:

Seriously. You're going to tell me what teachers make in my area when my wife works at a high school and has spent the last 30 years working at the 2nd largest school district in California?

According to zip recruiter, San Diego unified (2nd largest in CA), the entry level salary teacher salaries at the 75th percentile are $44k, meaning 3/4 start at that or below.  more than we start out at but hardly what I would call drastically more, especially given COL there.

By the way, as an educator and married to one, super undervalued and underpaid profession, so kudos to your wife