Should America Be Firing More Refs? – The KHL (Russian Hockey League) Banned a Referee For Life After Making an Incorrect Call
This is an immensely satisfying story. I can't tell you how pleased I would be to hear that an NFL referee who called a bullshit pass interference against my Indianapolis Colts was greeted with a "BANNED FOR LIFE" notice in their locker following the game. When I fist saw this story, I thought, "Hell yes. We need these standards in American sports."
Most every Twitter reaction I've seen to this has been along those lines. Which makes sense. Sports fans despise referees. There's something impossibly frustrating about being wronged by a ref. Of all things in the world, bad refs might bring out the worst in me as a person. I wouldn't dare reveal the thoughts that go through my head in the seconds after a ref throws a late flag for a holding penalty against a team I wagered money on.
However, I'm afraid when it comes to holding refs accountable, it might be a "be careful what you wish for" situation. Maybe I'm wildly off-base with this. Even if holding refs extremely accountable causes a serious problems, maybe it's better to try anything at all than to continue letting refs slide for their incompetence.
But officiating sports is hard. No official in the world, no matter what the sport, is going to get every call right. The best you can do is make yourself as invisible as possible, and cross your fingers that you aren't presented with a 50/50 judgement call that's going to infuriate both fan bases equally, no matter which way you call it.
Because of that, now more than ever, nobody wants to be a ref. We're currently facing a shortage of officials in youth sports across the country. Demand outweighs supply. Part of it has to do with these 11-year old travel teams playing twice as many games per season as they did 20+ years ago. Another part of it has to do with parents taking their 11-year old kid's travel __ games WAY too seriously. Even at $50 cash for a 7-inning baseball game, for so many people, it's simply not worth the headache.
Obviously, reffing youth sports is a vastly different animal than professional sports. In youth sports, it's just you and your partner out there. There's no replay to back you up. You're forced to make decisions on the spot, and whatever you decide in the moment is law. But good, competent officials have to start somewhere. And right now, becoming a youth sports official is less appealing than ever.
My point is, I'm afraid might have unrealistic expectations for officials. I'm afraid we might not know how good we have it. If we went full KHL and start firing refs for making bad calls, those ref are going to be replaced with refs who have previously been deemed less qualified than the ones we ran out of town.
Or maybe we don't fire these refs on the spot. One idea I always see floated is that we should make refs get up on a podium and explain themselves after the game. Athletes are forced to do it. Same with coaches. Why shouldn't refs as well? Make them face the music like everyone else.
Well if we do that, then we have a situation where that ref's name and face are made EXTREMELY public. Far more public than they already were. I can't think of many groups of people I'd less like to have a vendetta against me than pissed-off sports fans. And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe these refs could use a little kick in the pants. Maybe if officials know there are serious consequences for fucking up, they'll get their shit together and never boot a call again.
On the other hand… maybe that just makes becoming a referee even less appealing… and the more people we scare off, the smaller the pool of qualified officials gets. The less people who want to be officials, the worse officiating we get across the board. If we start sending these refs to the wolves for slaughter every time they make a mistake, nobody is going to want to do the job. I'm just not sure you can brow beat officials into being better under threat of punishment.
However, like most things, the answer to this problem is almost certainly money. If we paid them more money, it would incentive smarter humans to take up officiating as a profession. I can tell you for a fact that when I umpired youth baseball, it was the officials who did it for money who were the best ones. They just want to know the rules so can do their job correctly, be as invisible as possible, and get out of there with a paycheck. It's the people who want to be officials because they want to be involved in the game that you have to be weary of. The less money you pay officials, the more of those guys you're going to get.
But realistically… do we really think the professional sports leagues of America are going to open up the checkbook for better refs? Of course not. Why would they? Bad calls aren't deterring fans from tuning in. If anything, bad calls just drum up more controversy. More controversy means more conversation. More conversation means more eyeballs on the sport.
We could always institute more video replay reviews. But even that doesn't take care of everything. Not every call is as simple as, "Did the receiver get two feet in bounds?"
I'm not even sure what I'm advocating for at this point. I suppose I'm advocating for more money. We should pay officials enough money so that they take their jobs as seriously as possible. But I also know that we're never going to get perfect officiating in sports. If a ref gets a call really wrong, like in the case of this KHL ref, then maybe he does deserve to be fired. But I see so many sports fans out for blood every time a call goes against their team. And if we start firing every official who blows a call to appease the masses, we're going to end up in an even worse spot than we already are.
