The Little League Coach

Paid vs Volunteer Umpires

Sorry about not posting last night. I had a minor’s practice at 5PM, a major’s practice at 6:30PM, and a senior’s practice at 8PM. All is good w/ that except I started watching the debate w/ my wife and next thing I knew it was 1AM. Sorry about that, how about that Sarah Palin? Won’t be too tough to listen to her talk for 4 years will it?

I should preface this post with the fact that I umpire in Little League as an unpaid volunteer and for travel programs as a paid umpire.

I was sent an article as part of an umpire’s newsletter today written by Jim Smith of Pennsylvania District 22. I assume he is the umpire in chief for that district, though it never really says. The article, titled Volunteer vs. Paid can be found here:

http://www.littleleague.org/Page57168.aspx

Great read wasn’t it?

I have to agree there is little more gratifying then volunteering time for Little League. It is fun and extremely rewarding. My personal opinion is you never pay money for anything for Little League unless it turns you a profit. For instance, we once paid a guy to come in and show us how to run our bat-a-thon and make it profitable. When I left that league of 1,400 kids we were bringing in $140,000/year in batathon money. We paid him 5%. A good investment I think.

Another opportunity to pay a company and actually bring more revenue into the organization that you would have otherwise, is a snack bar company. My personal favorite is a sponsorship company. They can sell advertising all over your park for a small fee and bring in tons of money for the league.

The bottom line is, you shouldn’t pay people directly for work they do for the league and the volunteer organization, but paying a company to increase revenues to the league is smart. Umpire are an expense, not a profit center, profit centers should be exploited, expenses reduced. With this corporate philosophy throughout the league, the kids will reap all the rewards.

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General, Umpires
baseball, General, Jim Smith, little league, Little League Baseball, paid, Sarah Palin, Sport, umpire, volunteer
4 October 2008 comment TrackBack-URI