Umpire Numbers -- curious about other areas

[zoops]

I witness all of the things that have been mentioned.  Seems all sports in my area face somewhat of an official shortage, with basketball seeming to be the most flush with officials (although not an excess).  The main reasons I see (in my area, in order of importance)

- Pay commensurate with game length.  Often comes up with older guys I work basketball with that this was the reason they quit baseball years ago.  I can sign up for 4 middle school basketball games and KNOW I will done in 4-4.5 hours (often around 3.5 hours in my experience) and make about $160.  It would take the same amount of time to do 2 middle school baseball games (and possibly an hour or two longer with extra innings, weather delays, bad pitching, etc) and make less than $100.  Varsity HS baseball games in my area pay $70, Varsity basketball pays $80.  Not uncommon to start a varsity DH at 4:30 and get off the field near 10:00; rarely before 9.  That's a long day for people with day jobs.  Usually our basketball JV games start at 6:00 with varsity following and you're often done before 9:00.  The earlier starts in baseball are another challenge but we don't seem to have much trouble getting those covered in basketball and there are a lot of them with middle school games.  We've tried to address the pay inequity but haven't gotten anywhere.  

- Weather.  Here in the north, not uncommon to play games in the 40's or lower throughout the spring.  Not a whole lot else to do in our winters, might as well officiate basketball.  Our summers are short so people often don't want to work a side job.  Plus there's rain delays where you sit around for no pay, cancellations at the last minute, etc.  Just a headache.  

- Cheap to start doing basketball.  $150-200 and you're set with solid gear.  Probably $300 minimum for cheap gear in baseball, probably more like $700 to do it right.

- Obviously there's the factors of people being busy (which is probably the #1 overall reason for officials shortages in all sports), not wanting to get yelled at, not being confident enough in the rules to begin, etc.  We've offered several trainings for free and have loaned out gear for free and it hasn't done much for us.