interesting $ numbers for championship game officials payments

[dammitbobby]

Some interesting numbers from a UIL Open Records Request I submitted related to state championship football games officials payments for 2025 (I actually requested, and got, data from 2021-present). The average total official pay was $1,276.96.

The lowest on-field official pay, including meal/travel, was $310; the highest on-field official pay (including travel/meal) was $2,285.  (The highest total pay for on on-field official was in 2023, $2751.64)

Alternate officials were paid $50 flat fee, no mileage, no meal fee, no per diem.

The highest grossing game in gate receipts (team sales + onsite receipts), was 5ADII Richmond Randle vs SOC, which brought in a whopping $289,618.33.

The lowest grossing was 1ADII, Richland Springs vs Jayton, which brought in $40,170.

To compute pay, they combine the home + visitor ticket sales, and for each day (3 games), they take the total onsite gate and /3 and allocate that to each game.

Total gate revenue (home team sales + visitor team sales + onsite sales) = $1,748,455.00 

In 2020, total honorariums (just game fees) for on-field officials came out to $69,990. In 2025, it was $93,000.

None of these numbers include streaming revenue from FoxSports Southwest, Bally, or Victory+. I've no idea what kind of revenue was generated for UIL from online streaming, but I do know how many pairs of eyeballs watched games on Victory+: 2.1 million. (source: https://www.dallasnews.com/high-school-sports/football/2025/12/23/texas-high-school-football-state-championships-eclipse-2-million-viewers-on-victory/) And in 2023, Bally had 250k, so what, 8x increase in online viewership in three years?

That to me is a pretty compelling argument that NFHS streaming games, along with local school districts, that revenue should be counted in game fees for officials, since schools charge for access as does the NFHS streaming service.

Just food for thought.

[Ralph Damren]

I learned at a young age that Texas was big by retrofitting giant machines in the Dallas area for my then employer back in the late 60's. Your payscale for officials illustrates that  . In Maine, all sports officials earn $97.50 /game regular season; times 1.25 post-season, times 1.50 championship. I probably speak for many who officiate, not for the money, but for staying in the game that we love.

                                           

                                               

[dammitbobby]

Ralph I definitely agree that it's not about the money; but, since we have a pay structure that has variables, it's our responsibility to make sure that the pay we receive is accurate and correct, since we don't know how it calculated by the schools. This is how it is calculated by UIL for championship games, but officials are simply told what the pay amount is, not how it is calculated.

This is believed to be a very wide-spread problem in Texas (underpayment for games) which is further complicated by the fact that many officials are hesitant to use 'trust but verify' since coaches can pick officials and crews and they don't want to make waves. Schools are not required to provide a 'paystub' or equivalent to the contractors (i.e., officials) that work their games, so the vast majority of officials have no idea if they're being paid correctly or not (and I definitely don't think overpayment is a concern, on either side.) I have suggested that the paysheet provided by TASO be modified to give schools an opportunity to 'fill in the blanks' on the different variables that make up pay so that officials can more easily see how it was calculated, but haven't gotten anywhere with that yet. (I've yet to work a job - any formalized job - where the employer did not provide, or was not required to provide, a pay stub that shows how the pay was computed... except for officiating. And that needs to change.)

The intent of this is not to brag or be boastful about pay, but to bring transparency to the process and educate Texas officials on how this works, and start to drive change. I had to do three FOIA requests to get this information as it's not publicly available, then wait 2-3 weeks for a response on each... sunshine is a great disinfectant.

[ElvisLives]

I learned at a young age that Texas was big…

                                                                                 

I live in Lubbock, about at the base of the ‘panhandle’ portion of Texas. About 10 hours drive from Houston, and a mere 5 1/2 hours from Fort Worth (add another 30-45 minutes to Dallas). Back in my FBS days,  I could certainly fly to El Paso, for UTEP games, but my job, at the time, was moderately stressful, and I discovered that driving to El Paso was 6-hours of peace and quiet. So I always drove to UTEP games.
I had the Liberty Bowl in Memphis around 2005. As directed, I contacted the “bowl people” to make travel plans. When I told them where I live, they said that the “official airline” of the bowl did not service Lubbock, and that I would have to get to Houston to catch a flight from there. “Ma’am, I’m not sure you realize how big Texas is. That’s about 10 hours away by car. Another 4 hours and I could be in Memphis.” They gave me a voucher for future travel from Houston (which, you’ll be shocked to hear, I was never able to use before it expired). I covered my entire travel for that game.
Yep, we’re big. We just need to secede and be our own country.

[Etref]

👍

[TxBJ]

Regarding your streaming numbers, Victory+ was free this past season and was the only way to watch. Prior to that you needed a subscription that included Bally/Fox SW, and the games were also on TV if you had such a subscription.

[Ralph Damren]

Last year we had a big discussion regarding being able to cover all Friday night games with our dwendling officiating numbers  . Our suggestions included playing some games Saturday night  . Many schools (ADs) balked, sighting it would effect their " pay/profit " ratio . Our thoughts were Saturday nights might draw better than Friday; as visiting fans wouldn't have to hurry from work/school/whatever to get to the game  .

The schools (ADs) nixed  still nixed that idea 

We felt the probable underlying reason was the athletic directors wanted the night off .

Realizing the "Friday Night Lights" tradition, what % of your varsity games are played on other days ?

[ElvisLives]

Last year we had a big discussion regarding being able to cover all Friday night games with our dwendling officiating numbers  . Our suggestions included playing some games Saturday night  . Many schools (ADs) balked, sighting it would effect their " pay/profit " ratio . Our thoughts were Saturday nights might draw better than Friday; as visiting fans wouldn't have to hurry from work/school/whatever to get to the game  .

The schools (ADs) nixed  still nixed that idea 

We felt the probable underlying reason was the athletic directors wanted the night off .

Realizing the "Friday Night Lights" tradition, what % of your varsity games are played on other days ?

Percentages? Can’t say. But, a lot of games are played on Thursdays, because there are way more games to be played than there are officials to cover them on a single night. Easily half of 6-player games get played on Thursdays. Not half, but a significant amount of 11-player games get played on Thursdays, especially in areas where several teams use the same stadium. Years ago, state administrators decided to avoid playing on Saturdays, to save on operational costs related to buses and drivers, and other excuses. But, I believe there are still some regular season games played on Saturdays, and a good number of playoff games played on Saturdays (due to travel times to get to ‘neutral sites’). And the 12 State Championship games are played three games per day, Wednesday thru Saturday during a week in December.

[TxJim]

This was a preseason number of regular season games from my local chapter last year, not complete but close
Varsity 11 weeks   563   
Thurs         71   12.61 %
Fri            457   81.17 %
Sat            35     7.66 %

Ralph, the primary factor driving non-Friday games scheduling here is by necessity--stadium availability, as we have several large school districts with multiple schools (up to 12 schools) and only one or two district-wide venues. Similar answer in Houston and Dallas I suspect.

[Etref]

Interestingly, Big 12 has Texas Tech scheduled for a Friday night game. School not happy about it.

[ElvisLives]

Interestingly, Big 12 has Texas Tech scheduled for a Friday night game. School not happy about it.

Don’t think the 9/18 game vs Houston is set, yet. While “TV talks,” TV would just be shooting themselves in their foot a bit, losing a lot of viewers to high school games. And, attendance at the game would suffer, some, as well.

[Etref]

 

[ElvisLives]

Breaking news:
Tech just announced that, yes, they will play Houston on Friday, 9/18, and they will play the Thanksgiving Day game at Jerry World vs TCU. And the official schedule has been updated since this morning to reflect that!

Etref must have had some good ‘inside information.’