Raise The Rates for Grassroots Basketball Referees

In late 2023, the Ref Union held what was probably the first-of-its-kind "Raise The Rates Rally" outside Open Gym Premier in Anaheim, California, to bring awareness to the stagnation of referee pay rates and their direct impact on the shortage of qualified officials available to work grassroots youth basketball. Given its success, we hope to hold several more rallies in 2024 and beyond...

For the better part of two decades, club/travel basketball programs have increased team registration fees, gate fees, parking fees, etc. on an annual basis, looking for every avenue to squeeze every dollar they can out of parents and coaches. However, despite our essential role in managing the games, while dealing with increased vitriol hurled at us from the stands, most referees have actually seen their pay rates DECLINE over that same period.

It is no surprise that most referees have quit working weekend basketball and the few that remain sometimes have to work over 10 hours straight just to cover all the games and make the venture somewhat worthwhile. Furthermore, many referees you see working weekend basketball are just random kids throwing on a referee shirt ⏤ uncertified, untrained, untested, and uninsured ⏤ which causes humongous safety and liability concerns, not just for the referees, but the young players who deserve real officials on their games.

Open Gym Premier is a particularly heinous example of club basketball greed, being among the richest of all basketball programs in Southern California, yet they entered 2024 paying their referees lower real wages than they did back in 2014. When their former referees adopted a Union model and tried to collectively bargain for cost-of-living adjustments, most of them got dismissed and replaced. #UnionBusting

Hence why we are selecting OGP headquarters for our upcoming rallies, concurrent with some of their biggest tournaments of the year ⏤ the Championship and The Stage events ⏤ the latter held in collaboration with the Compton Magic. We find it despicable that for all the money that parents and coaches pay for their kids to play in these tournaments, nothing from the recent price increases actually went to the people working on the court. Based on the conversations we had with parents and coaches at the 2023 rally, most of them did not even know where all that extra money is going.

This GoFundMe was created for any referees, coaches, players, parents, or fans, that wish to support us but cannot physically be there to join our picket line. Your contributions will go towards signs, pamphlets, marketing, organization, gas stipends, snacks, and water for the referees that will be outside the gym fighting for better treatment and commensurate pay for the referees inside the gym. With your help, we hope to give referees a voice and hold club programs accountable for treating their officiating staff with respect and paying them a fair portion of tournament revenue.

For further details or if you'd like to join our rally, please get in touch. We also invite you to follow us on social media ⏤ www.facebook.com/refunion ⏤ for all future updates.