How WNBA referees are scouted, educated, and held accountable, defined

Regardless of the game, the gender, and the second in time, one factor has all the time been true: referees are inherently a number of the most unpopular characters in sports activities.

Reeling followers blame officers when calls go in opposition to their favourite groups and athletes. Players routinely rail in opposition to them after powerful losses, notably these determined by a single name. And, oftentimes, the frustration is rooted in actuality — the officers who’re supposed to remain out of the best way could make expensive errors that change the outcomes of video games. Still, aggressive sports activities depend on unbiased arbitrators, and referees are the closest factor society has to that.

This previous 12 months, the officiating within the WNBA turned as hot-button a difficulty as any. Heated debates surrounding the league’s physicality dominated the headlines, notably when Indiana Fever star rookie Caitlin Clark was topic to a number of intentional fouls.

Tensions got here to a head within the WNBA Finals’ deciding Game 5, when a controversial last-second foul name on Minnesota Lynx ahead Alanna Smith gave the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart two free throws, and an opportunity to ship the sport to extra time.

The Liberty received it within the further interval, and chaos adopted.

“All the headlines will read ‘Reeve cries foul.’ Bring it on. Bring it on,” stated Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve after a long-winded rant through which she laid out her grievances with the refereeing. “Because this shit was stolen from us.”

But, as annoyed as many had been with WNBA officiating this previous season, little or no is publicly recognized about how people change into WNBA referees, what varieties of accountability measures are in place when officers mess up, and which selections are inside their jurisdiction — and that are outdoors of their scope.

So, for this week’s version of WNBA Explained, SB Nation sat with two of probably the most skilled folks within the basketball officiating world: Monty McCutchen and Sue Blauch.

McCutchen oversees referee improvement because the senior vice chairman of referee and coaching on the NBA, and was beforehand an NBA referee for nearly 25 years. Blauch, the vice chairman of WNBA referee efficiency and improvement, beforehand served as a WNBA referee for 20 years.

Here’s what we realized within the prolonged dialog.

Let’s begin on the prime – how does one change into a WNBA referee?

Every WNBA and NBA referee’s journey is totally different, however all of them share the identical basis: a stint within the G League. Since 2004, all aspiring officers — no matter their respective skilled backgrounds — should spend time refereeing within the NBA’s developmental league.

However, the journey people take to get to the G League varies tremendously from individual to individual. The NBA oversees a strong referee scouting program that identifies promising younger refs from all walks of life and recruits them into an official improvement program that finally funnels into the G League.

“They [scouts] are in high school gyms, they’re in college gyms, they go to NIRSA (National Intramural-Recreation Sports Association) clinics,” Blauch stated. “They’re out there looking at a lot of the referees [who are] just getting into it, just getting started.”

(Side word: I performed six years of NIRSA basketball at Northeastern University, and can attest first-hand that the referees are top-notch).

Once scouts establish intriguing candidates, they formally invite them into the WNBA and NBA refereeing developmental program.

“They’re invited — based on talent — to attend grassroots candidate evaluation events,” Blauch stated. “And, there’s a progression of candidate evaluation events every spring, through the summer, where referees are evaluated, critiqued, and then brought on into the G league each year to start their training.”

McCutchen famous that “talent” extends past merely being intuitive in regards to the sport — the league particularly appears to be like for refs who can work effectively with others to type a whole officiating staff.

“We can’t take three independent people from different backgrounds and put them in the highest league in the world in the WNBA, and expect teamwork,” he stated.

The result’s a pool of various officers with various backgrounds — some most skilled in highschool, some hailing straight from school, and a few from NIRSA. All of them subsequently undergo the NBA’s developmental program, a structured system that emphasizes referees working in unison.

“While we’re open to talent from anywhere, it is important that they be trained through the mechanic system so that they can be part of something bigger than themselves, which is a team,” McCutchen stated.

“It’s a very robust training program that really prepares them for the highest professional leagues in the country,” Blauch stated.

Blauch and McCutchen took totally different pathways to turning into skilled referees. Blauch was proactively recruited out of NCAA Division I refereeing, whereas McCutchen was much more inexperienced, initially drawn to the sector as a consequence of monetary necessity.

“I got started because I was hungry,” he admitted. “Basketball was all I knew.”

Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

So, McCutchen — a substitute instructor at a center faculty in Los Angeles on the time — attended a referee assembly at an area school, the place he realized that officiating may yield monetary alternative.

“I was like, ‘How much do you make for that?’” he stated, reflecting upon a dialog with one other younger referee. “He told me the per hour, and it was a lot better than what I was making per hour back then.”’

McCutchen didn’t officiate highschool or school — solely elementary and center faculty girls and boys. But, he took a swing at a dream that panned out higher than he may have ever imagined.

“I was silly enough, maybe ambitious enough, to sit down and write the NBA a letter saying this is what I wanted to do,” McCutchen stated.

That choice finally led to a possibility to attend a referee camp that he couldn’t afford, however was nonetheless desperate to make work.

“My dad went and took a loan out against a horse he had, and gave me the money to go to that camp,” McCutchen stated.

The relaxation was historical past; a profitable 20-year NBA officiating profession adopted.

How the speedy progress of the WNBA has impacted officiating

2024 was a 12 months of unprecedented progress and viewership within the WNBA, a considerable quantity of which might be attributed to Caitlin Clark, who took the basketball world by storm after an all-time school profession.

But, the season ended with the coaches of the Lynx and the Liberty — Cheryl Reeve and Sandy Brondello,— taking turns railing in opposition to the officiating within the WNBA Finals. Officiating, because it has so many occasions, took middle stage in probably the most high-profile and consequential second within the sport’s season.

Blauch and McCutchen each famous that as the sport has developed, officiating generally lags behind.

“The thing that’s important to note is referees are always slightly behind the innovations of players,” McCutchen stated. “Players and teams push boundaries — that’s what makes it great. They dedicate their lives to footwork and the ability to push right up to the line. Refereeing and the Department of Refereeing has to live up to those innovations and that growth.”

This previous season, many individuals criticized referees for the quantity of physicality that is part of as we speak’s WNBA recreation, urging officers to raised shield gamers who’re topic to arduous fouls. But as straight as they might be concerned, it’s generally not (totally) their name.

“I think sometimes it’s misunderstood that referees make those decisions about the style of play and the interpretations of rules,” McCutchen stated. “That’s not true. What actually happens is that we have a competition committee for stakeholders, coaches, governors, and general managers — and that competition committee is the committee that dictates the state of the game.”

One vital level of inside dialogue within the league has been legislating screen-setting.

“Because we’re offensively driven, and we have so many screens in our games, we’re constantly making sure that we’re balancing the defenders being able to defend, as well as the offensive players being able to do what they want to do without being illegally impeded, that sort of thing,” Blauch stated. “We look at those play types and look to hone in for our training, for our points of education going forward.”

The committee explores issues like correct freedom of motion, and balancing offense and protection. They then suggest rule modifications and requirements to the Board of Governors, which high-profile people in WNBA management, like Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, are part of. The referees merely take the agreed-upon rule modifications and do their greatest to implement them.

“It is then our responsibility to make sure that we’re living up to those standards through constant feedback from our stakeholders,” McCutchen stated. “That’s what good officiating looks like.”

Blauch and McCutchen don’t suppose that the WNBA’s officiating is extra inconsistent than NBA officiating — as an alternative, they imagine that the speedy inflow of recent eyes merely results in elevated scrutiny.

“I think what happened in the W is that we had exponentially more eyes on WNBA officiating than we’ve ever had, and rightfully so,” McCutchen stated. “And, it sort of started to equal the scrutiny that NBA officials have on any given night.”

McCutchen acknowledged that errors have definitely been made, as is all the time the case with officiating. But, on the similar time, he believes that a number of the issues are rooted within the actuality that the WNBA recreation is inherently officiated otherwise than the NCAA.

“Consistency doesn’t mean perfection,” McCutchen stated. “We’re human beings who make mistakes. But when you get an exponential new set of eyes on the WNBA, that’s going to bring, to some degree, a lack of understanding of WNBA officiating.”

Blauch — who officiated within the NCAA for 28 years and within the WNBA for 19 years — equally reiterated that it’s necessary to grasp the substantial distinction between the 2 leagues.

“[The WNBA] is very, very different than 18 to 21-year-olds in college basketball,” Blauch stated. “The game is very different — the way they play, the style of play, the strength, their ability to be physical — legally — is very different.”

“If fans haven’t watched the WNBA game, until Angel Reese or Caitlin Clark or Cameron Brink… some of those new players to the league this year, they did have their eyes opened, I’m sure, in a very new way.”

The fable of no accountability for referee errors

One of the notions that followers typically discover irritating about referees is the perceived lack of accountability they face for expensive errors. And whereas it’s true that referees don’t conduct on-camera postgame interviews, Blauch and McCutchen famous that there are a number of accountability measures in place that referees are topic to.

For one, recreation assignments are usually made primarily based on inside efficiency evaluations, and on condition that WNBA referees receives a commission by recreation, their whole variety of assignments is essential. Playoff assignments, or lack thereof, are one other measure of accountability.

Additionally, every referee crew is comprised of three distinct positions: the crew chief, a referee, and an umpire. Umpires are usually the latest referees with the least expertise; finally, most umpires’ aim is to change into referees.

“A crew chief — that’s sort of what you strive for as a referee,” Blauch stated, noting that the very best officers get the chance to hold much more accountability for a way the sport is run and managed.

Photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire through Getty Images

Referees are continually receiving on-line suggestions. The league manages an inside web site, the Referee Engagement Performance System (REPS), and each single WNBA recreation is downloaded into this platform with evaluation. The Department of Refereeing can even create “playlists” of calls like flagrant fouls for instructional functions, and showcase to referees which calls they received proper and which calls they received improper.

“Each official gets hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of [pieces of] feedback throughout the season, in real-time,” McCutchen stated. “They don’t hear from us once every two weeks. They’re hearing from us daily on where improvements need to take place, and that’s a form of real-time accountability.”

Both McCutchen and Blauch imagine that followers will all the time have points with officiating, no matter what strides are made within the discipline.

“I do think that it’s somewhat inevitable,” Blauch stated. “Fans are very driven by the success of their team and their favorite players and their star players — and fans are just generally going to look at the game through how things went for their particular favorite player or favorite team. I don’t know that we ever get past that.”

Still, WNBA officers additionally make a concerted effort to just accept criticism of the officiating to enhance.

“It’s our responsibility to be confident enough in the work to acknowledge when the criticism is warranted — and therefore we need to get better,” McCutchen stated. “The WNBA exploded in popularity for really good reasons. This year, we’re expanding our team base, so the league is really growing. That invites more scrutiny, and more constructive criticism, in terms of making sure that the refereeing department and the staff itself live up to that growth. And it’s our responsibility to know where the work is and where the noise is — but you can’t get to the work if you’re constantly defending bad work out of the principle of trying to be right.”

Another measure of accountability is monetary penalties; referees can be topic to fines when sure errors are made. However, refs will solely face fines for making errors labeled as “misapplications of rules” slightly than typical blown calls. Some examples of fineable errors embrace not permitting a staff to problem once they had a problem accessible and awarding a staff an incorrect variety of free throws.

Incorrect foul calls or out-of-bounds calls usually are not fineable offenses.

“Judgement is the same as missing a layup,” McCutchen stated.

McCutchen declined to share precisely how a lot fines are — nor what NBA and WNBA officiating salaries are — however he famous that they’re a type of “meaningful accountability.”

Still, an simple useful resource disparity exists between WNBA and NBA officiating

Sue Blauch stated she doesn’t imagine that the WNBA’s officiating is any extra inconsistent than the NBA’s.

However, it’s honest to say which might be definitely extra assets on the NBA’s facet. For one, NBA refs are salaried workers with extra officiating alternatives, given the truth that their season is 82 video games. WNBA referees, in the meantime, receives a commission per recreation and usually officiate the NCAA within the offseason. So, whereas NBA officers will usually solely officiate NBA video games as soon as they start with the NBA, WNBA referees have to change gears all through the years.

Additionally, whereas G League basketball isn’t precisely the identical because the NBA’s, it’s inherently extra just like the NBA than the WNBA given the truth that no matter the way you slice it, the NBA and G League are each males’s basketball leagues with overlapping gamers. So, it’s honest to take care of that the present developmental monitor is healthier served to arrange referees for the NBA than the WNBA.

The useful resource disparity additionally reveals up in a number of different methods. For instance, the day after each slate of standard season video games, the NBA points a Last Two Minute report that delineates each single officiating mistake that was made within the remaining two minutes “for any game in which one team’s lead over the other is three points or fewer at any point during the last two minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime.”

The WNBA doesn’t have an analogous accountability measure presently as a consequence of an absence of assets — but it surely may discover one thing comparable down the highway.

“They take all day to do,” McCutchen stated. “And it’s an enormous amount of headcount within the office, in our independent review system and judging system of plays. And therefore, right now, the WNBA doesn’t have those resources.”

Looking forward at WNBA officiating

McCutchen maintains that misconceptions and feelings cloud followers’ understanding of officiating. Most big-picture refereeing tendencies usually are not really underneath the officers’ jurisdiction — however are as an alternative decisions the league makes concerning legislating the sport.

“People that get involved in refereeing are people that are excited, and driven by, integrity and character and fairness,” McCutchen stated. “I know our fanbases don’t feel that, but the characteristics that we see that consistently show up — either in our pipeline or those that make it to the G League and then on to the WNBA and the NBA — all have similar characteristics of fairness and integrity. High-character people.”

“Our mistakes tend to cloud that sometimes because there are mistakes that are very human in nature, [but] are viewed through a prism of desire by our fanbases and our teams, and that leads to some erroneous thoughts about how we approach our work.”

As the WNBA continues to develop, it is going to proceed to enhance throughout the board. We noticed efforts to enhance teaching throughout the board this previous season, with 7 of 12 head coaches leaving their present organizations. We’re equally seeing it with franchises prioritizing getting new apply amenities.

Officiating will inevitably catch up, too.

More video games — subsequent season will characteristic 42 common season video games for every staff slightly than 40 — means extra alternatives for referees. More eyes on the product means extra money for everybody concerned — and, in flip, extra assets. And all that further expertise and monetary funding, may finally result in higher refereeing, too.

This article is the sixth installment of SB Nation’s new “WNBA Explained” collection, a weekly column diving deep into totally different subjects associated to ladies’s basketball. You can learn final week’s column about what it’s prefer to be chosen in a WNBA growth drafted right here.