Officiating

I don’t know anything about hockey, but the other three are all tough. In baseball you have to judge every single pitch a ball/strike which can be super tough, and that’s not even counting check swings, whether a runner was safe, or foul balls. Basketball is tough because everyone is constantly moving and when the paint gets crowded it’s tough to see what’s going on in there, then you have the subtle pushoffs and flops/charges. Football is tough because the players can be spread out over 40 yards from eachother, it’s impossible to tell what’s going on in the trenches and like basketball it’s hard to see minor things like pushoffs and holds (especially with coaches teaching you how to be sneaky with them).

Officiating period is a hard job. One call and the dynamic of any sport game can alter the result. but to answer your question, i will have to go with football for the exact reasons you said.

I would have to go with football.  Sometimes I’m watching a game and they’ll call a penalty I’ve never even heard of.  Not to mention, what the hell is holding nowadays?  Every lineman holds, it’s just the ones that do it blatantly get called.  It’s all about judgement.

2nd place is a tie between homeplate umpire and a basketball referee.  Homeplate has to judge every single pitch, even the ones they don’t have a great view of.  Basketball referee, well it’s pretty self-explanitory.  Call the fouls and use your best judgement.

I would say the easiest is 1st and 3rd base umpire.  All you have to do is make sure someone is safe and the ball isn’t foul.

I have no idea "aboot" hockey.

I have no idea "aboot" hockey.

I see what you did there.

 I don’t think I would be able to call balls and strikes, and NBA officiating they have to run the entire game and try have so many rules to worry about, the NFL uses replay so if you really blow it they can fix it, no idea aboot hockey either

 I would say football and the umpire of football. They have to watch the line, count players, and look for any other penalties in that area. I never noticed that there are 7 officials at a game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_(American_football) There are also a ton of random rules that are called once or twice a year and you have to know all of them.

I’ve been a high school ref for basketball and football.  Basketball, for me, is harder, though they’re comparable.  Football penalties are usually predictable and you generally have a very specific piece of the action to cover.  Basketball is more free flowing and your coverage angle changes faster and more frequently.  Also, determining whether you just saw a blocking foul vs. a charge can be very hard to call, while common football penalties (off sides, holding, pass interference) don’t usually require guess work. Obviously, there are close calls in all sports, but basketball seems to have a lot of them.  Also, I may find football easier because I spent more time playing and officiating it than I did basketball.

I’ve never officiated in any other sport, but Hockey seems like it could be a challenge (especially since I don’t skate).

 football i think is very difficult because of all the penalties, 22 players on the field. and plus some calls are really hard like sideline catches. you have to look at the feet and if the reciever has control of the ball.

I would normally say football is the toughest since there is so much going on and guys getting away with stuff and you could litteraly make a call on every single play probably but there is just too much to watch. But I guess thats actually the reason I think the nfl refs might have it a little easier in that everyone knows so much is gonna go uncalled that the refs in football dont have to be anywhere close to perfect and nobody really gives them crap for it as long as they dont blow anything too obvious. And all scoring plays are reviewed now so that only makes htere job easier.

Baseball is tough no doubt for the ump behind home plate. But the rest of them probably arent too hard.

NBA officiating is tough plus you get yelled at on every single play you dont get right.

I dont know, the answer, just rambling.

Basketball is so hard to officiate, about 40% of the calls can legitly go the other way, I really don’t think there is a such thing as a good ref, I rip refs apart, but I do admit that if I were a ref at any level that I’d get mobed by both teams after the game, lol.

i’ve ref’d basketball games before. It hard as hell. Guys will be in traffic trying to go up and some one reaches in and slaps the ball away and there is zero way of knowing if it was clean or not so you start thinking in your head that if you let a few go and the players complained then maybe you should call the next one but then you are anticpating making calls without seeing them and thats never good.

always disrespect "futbal". Soccer refs run more than any other. They have to watch for fouls, and more"flopping" than basketball refs. Offside in soccer is more difficult to determine than in American football.

Plus, lots of big money is thrown at soccer refs to influence games at may levels.

This was a poll question on espn.com either yesterday or today. I think football is by far the toughest to ref. If I remember correctly the vote ranks looked like this;

1. Football
2. Baseball
3. Basketball
4. Hockey

 I umpire baseball and for me doing the plate is easier the doing the field. We do games with only two umpires (one behind home and one in the field) as compared to the MLB where they have one at each base. Besides calling balls and strikes there is not really much else the home plate ump does. Once you get used to calling balls and strikes a lot it gets pretty easy to do. There will be an occasional play at home but it is mostly just balls and strikes. While in the field there are a lot of bang bang plays that are sometimes very difficult to see. Sometimes it will be a tag play where the ball beat the runner, but they missed the tag or a close play at first. Obviously it would be easier if you just had the one base to umpire like in the pros as compared to doing three bases, but doing the field is not as easy as you think.