What are the venue costs they are harping on about?? BSA gets almost all stadiums on a peppercorn lease ($1/year). Not sure how they can't pay refs a good wage when on a midweek game there are 15 players (sometimes more) paying $15+ that's $225, the $$ are definitely going into someones pockets.

Interesting that the first response to a BSA statement explaining increased investment in developing referees AND increasing referee payments is a negative comment re BSA stadium costs vs game payments.

The reality is that BSA only manage 5 stadiums (SBC, Springbank, M/Vale, Pt Adel & Marion) and my understanding is that there is only 1 stadium on a Peppercorn lease and even then BSA is responsible for maintenance.

The BSA stadiums are leased on commercial terms and they have to rent courts at the other stadiums (eg Lights, St Clair, ARC) the same as any other user.

Anyway more fun to bash BSA rather than be positive about them trying to improve the standard and pay of referees.

@GF22 you make a very valid point.


What I'm hoping is that the increase in referee payments will support the retention of our referees. It would be great to see them continuing and developing as they age. It’s great to see the mentoring of young ones on the court.

@GF22 Your understanding is wrong RE the peppercorns, understand the cost to hire courts at lights / st clair etc but that's not where I have been playing games. All are played across the BSA managed stadiums.

Not upset that refs are being remunerated better... more so that the amount of overheads and other things game fees are going to rather then the important people who the game doesn't run without.

Firstly i want to say the increase in payment for refs and development expenditure should be welcomed! Love it.

My concerns are though:
1) for the past couple seasons players of all grades were made to pay a $5 fee payment for "promotion for womens basketball"
we have no clue where that money went or how it was utilised to improve the womens standings in terms of skill development OR participation.
If anything during the time of this fee payment you might actually be able to argue that participation has decreased in SA.
In mid 2010s it seemed just to be Woodville struggling for numbers, but now Centrals, Southern and even Eastern seem to have had a outcry looking for more participants.

2) pay 100% is an issue with umpiring, but is it the biggest issue?
I don't know if we have been keeping up with the news, but ALOT of umpires in SA have been in the news in the past 36 months for very very questionable behaviour. I am amazed seeing these reports and these sentances handed down that there hasnt been a inquisition into BSA and their umpiring department for fairwork and safety.

If you google Basketball SA in news of the first 10 articles that come up 4 are from umpires inappropriate conduct.

The excuse from BSA has always been around spectator conduct and coach conduct towards umpires, but i would say over my 30 years being involved with basketball that the umpire experience has not changed THAT much from those factors.

The way they have tried to combat the above by highlighting u18 refs and new refs almost makes you question if they are aware of the wolves in sheeps clothing to the issues raised in my second point. Their policys highlight the vulnerable refs, which probably doesnt help them feeling comfortable, but also highlights them to predatory behaviour.

I have tried to avoid getting this thread locked by not diving too deep into my second point. But I am amazed that this hasnt been spoken more about in a broader context to why umpires are leaving the game.

Because if you are 15-18 you are getting paid terribly, you are probably still getting abuse from your customers... but how many are getting abuse from their co-workers like BSA umpires MIGHT be?

@Grote 12

You make fair points, and is probably the reason a number of parents remain at the stadiums watching their children umpire.

Basketball SA have a good set up where communication appears to be via email to U18's regarding potential availabilities, and phone calls to the parent / guardian if they’re needing an umpire to fill in (my experience).

Other associations seem to be ad hoc, but most communication has gone through the parent. There was a case when the referee was messaged but he didn’t see it as their school have the students lock their mobiles in pouches during the day.

Can’t complain regarding level 1C payment when you’re 15, it’s on par with casual work at KFC (no idea, just thinking it is). The hours are friendlier with school as well.

The playing and coaching groups have had just as much fall out with the law in this space than the referee group over the journey. Let's not get hysterical over a couple of bad eggs.

@Sebastian

Firstly this post is about referee payments, development and keeping refs in the game. So adding that coaches have been caught is less of an impact on the actual topic posts.

With that said I don't disagree that some coaches have been caught on the wrong side, but remember as an umpire it is technically a work place.

If you were at your place of work and had this occur you would be suing the business as well as the person who treated you this way.
The fact BSA has somehow dodged the courtroom with this many employees being convicted recently is very "lucky".

The most recent very public case had zero to do with their role as a referee nor with referee's under his supervision so no, I would not be suing my employer

I dont want to hash through the recent history of these cases as they are gross and 100% will get this thread locked.

But if your defence is "well the most recent person didnt do it in house" then thats a pretty weak defence.

There has been 5 or 6 basketball umpires in the past 2 years that have been convicted of these kinds of crimes in SA. Is there any group in SA that would have a similar conviction rate in terms of % of workforce and amount of individuals?
Umpring South Australian Basketball is niche career 250 employeee? 6 out of 250 is a high %. even then there are probably many job titles that also have a lower conviction rate of all crimes, let alone these kinds of crimes.

This shows that either:
the current vetting process does not pick up on predators.
OR
there is a cultural issue which breeds this behaviour to occur.

Regardless staff safety is of importance here and you have to question even if these are allegations what is BSA doing to protect the umpires from inhouse predatory behaviour?

The world is full of sick people, umpires, coaches, players priests... move on

South Australian referee's are going to get paid more. This is a great outcome for the BSA referee panel top to bottom.

That's two increases in a row which is good
Well done to BSA

2024 started with a sizable increase which was way overdue so SA is simply playing catch up on other states which are more generous

I reckon the refs are still under paid for what they do

Check the news out of Brisbane around a coach with a high profile son. Let's sue the employer.

It should hopefully help to retain the good referees.

The development of the junior refs also seem to be a focus, with increased opportunities for coaching of the young/new ones.

Enjoying the lack of most High School/College basketball meaning we have some black n whites out on Saturday mornings for Junior District games.

Term 2, things will return to normal when they all disappear for the significant money being offered by schools.

one thing that concerns me with junior refs - and I've seen it often.

Kids not much older than the players umpiring.

Coach from one team is a Squad HC or JDO at the home club - yelling "foul", "travel" "and one"e etc.

Junior ref is a player at the home club - totally intimidated as they want to continue playing at that club.

----------------------------

But the best one is same situation - but they are umpiring their little brother / cousin or sister - parent group yelling "foul", "2 shots" etc - then at the end of the game the ref goes and hangs with the parent group whilst they all high 5 about the win.
One can only imagine the conversation in the family car or over the dinner table before and after.

----------------------------

Is there any discussion on ethics etc with the junior refs on their courses ? I never hear any talk about things being neutral etc.

@+

I coach my son's team, and my other son is a referee and they both play at the same club.

I can assure you every effort is made to make sure my son does not referee the games I am coaching.

The last thing I need is both boys arguing with each other for the rest of the day!

"every effort is made" ... sorry that's not good enough. BSA as a peak body need to do better than that. It simply should never ever happen.

On the players referee and its hard. Yes it probably is, on the referee. If there's any question on the decision making, isn't that what a supervisor is for? They should be sending BSA feedback and BSA should take that on board.

Not surprisingly both situations, if played out, seem like more proof BSA staff are generally out of their depth.

Great insight and delivery @Grote 12.
The BSA Female Participation Strategy is farcical. With the exception of some glossy feel good images, there is no accountability, no details in implementation of strategy and no data to substantiate andy increase in participation. Girls will continue to leave and play football. BSA don't give a shit, it's a great revenue stream for them with no transparency or reporting back to the basketball community.

FYI I believe District participation numbers for girls has actually dropped rather than increased during the same period of time. Certainly has over the past 18 months.

Its a con.

I havent been on here in a while but can see this was recently commented on so people are still peeking this thread.

Will comment to Sebastian, if an activity of harm to people is a common occurance within a place of business the business can be liable for the activities. Its called Vicarious Liabilty.

This means if it can be shown that a habit of abuse is common within an organisation that there would be grounds to legal actions.

link : https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/employers/vicarious-liability

So a 1 off incident by a individual is not something you can hold a business to account on BUT if for example, hypothetically, if say 4-5 umpires in a short term span get sentenced to prison time for crimes against a certain age group of people in perverted ways, then yes the business could be held liable as they are either:

A - promoting this culture.
B - Not ensuring the safety of their staff

Examples: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c8565f86-c56f-4239-b642-8c7ae41a5ec0


Under Fairwork.gov.au

"A person or Company may be liable for sexual harassment committed by an employee or agent in connection with work, including if they were involved in the employer's contravention"

So an umpire, doing the above, could actually result in BSA being liable for the harassment committed.

And with again another umpire (since i posted this less than a month ago) has been sentence for such a crime, you might think that potentially there should be some form of investigation atleast for BSA to protect themselves as a company, THEN look to promote better safety practices for umpires and their employees.

Yet a father of a prominent NBL player gets arrested for rape and grooming and you are all silent. But hey!

Money makin' son, innocence takin' father.

Sebastian - IMO that's a poor comparision. One is a family memeber of a professional player, the other an active employee of a state body. The two aren't relatable at all.

Grote - I fear you're seeing multiple news updates about the same 1 or 2 people and confusing the continued coverage with it being a new person every time. From a distance I've only seen 2 referees/supervisors go to court and 1 get thru the system (and I believe pled guilty to some charges and a lot of the charges were dropped).

I do feel its important to note that the charges related to behaviour away from their role at BSA or as a referee, but I understand that it still obviously matters.

The world of communication is smaller and more and more people who do dumb and sometimes illegal things are getting caught. It's impossible for any sporting body to completely rule out that anyone in their community hasn't done bad things. As it is for any business or other community group.

It's also very different if they're using their position within that business, sporting organisation or community group to access children and do terrible things (such as the Church) or for some to have done these things outside of the organisation. Either way they get removed, which happened immediately, but the continued attacks on a topic about referee payments and trying to improve the referee conditions is getting tiresome and not constructive to further comments.

Hmmm that father of the professional basketball player was a coach at Northside Wizards at the time of the alleged offending, he held the title of "High Performance Manager". I'd suggest he is more of an active member in the basketball community compared to someone who signs a hobby form to participate for pocket change.

And now you've outed him and his old club. Can we move on now?

There are media articles all over the internet...hardly outed

There are media articles all over the internet...hardly outed

https://www.couriermail.com.au/truecrimeaustralia%2Fpolice-courts-qld%2Fformer-brisbane-basketball-coach-donald-robert-mccarron-hit-with-new-child-abuse-charges%2Fnews-story%2F427d0a568bccdd750104f96453cef2c5?amp&nk=c4ae92764a4a0c4a84563fb93361b83f-1741792830