NFL has suspended full time referee program

[Pegger]

I believe it's for 20 games. 4 preseason + 16 regular season. And I know you get a bonus if you work the Super Bowl, not sure about the other playoffs games or the Pro Bowl.

EDIT: Actually I went back and looked and there are 17 referee crews, so at least during the regular season there's always one crew off. But then you figure bye weeks, and then they're down to 14 crews needed - so I guess figure anywhere between 14-18 games worked, excluding playoffs.

There would be a lot of other time that isn't included. Travel to and from games, time before/after games, meeting with teams for their training camp and I'm assuming there's a lot of clinics/tape that has to be viewed.

I could imagine that it's pretty tough to carry a regular job and be a ref during the regular season. It would only work for people that are semi-retired or have been reffing up the ranks, which I hear is a complete gong show. Flying all around to do different high school and lower division college games for a fairly small amount of $ just seems like hell.

Actually when you probably think of what their hourly commitment is and that they have very limited control over their schedules it isn't that great of a gig.

 

[Gustavus Adolphus]

I could imagine that it's pretty tough to carry a regular job and be a ref during the regular season. It would only work for people that are semi-retired or have been reffing up the ranks, which I hear is a complete gong show. Flying all around to do different high school and lower division college games for a fairly small amount of $ just seems like hell.

Actually when you probably think of what their hourly commitment is and that they have very limited control over their schedules it isn't that great of a gig.

Yeah, I know a bunch of guys who will do a HS Varsity game in the suburbs, then they're going to a hotel in Iowa or Wisconsin for a D3 game. Not many guys really care about the money (which isn't a lot at all), because they know this is what you have to do to get noticed.