Referee assigning and pay for youth leagues

The idea

The national referee shortage means every youth league is fighting over a shrinking pool of officials, and the assignor, a volunteer or minimally paid parent, coordinates it all through group texts and a spreadsheet. Double-bookings, uncovered Saturday games discovered Friday night, and payout maths done by hand at month-end are the norm. Refs, who are often teenagers, quit over exactly two things: chaotic scheduling and late or wrong pay.

Assignr and ArbiterSports serve large associations and price per official, which small independent leagues experience as punitive and heavy. The wedge is the small-league bundle: hard conflict checks, a self-claim board that fills uncovered games without the assignor begging by text, and pay statements that make month-end mechanical. Being pleasant for refs is the retention feature, because leagues compete for refs now.

Who pays

The league pays 75 USD/month, and crucially it comes from registration-fee revenue (a 500-player league collects 50 to 150k USD a season), not anyone’s pocket, so the board approves it in one meeting. The buyer is the assignor or league administrator whose weekends it gives back. Distribution: state youth soccer and basketball association directories for direct outreach, assignor Facebook groups, and refs themselves, who push leagues towards tools that pay them correctly.

MVP scope

• CSV game import with mapping and re-upload dedupe
• Ref profiles with certifications, availability, and pay grades
• Assignment offers with hard conflict checks and 48h expiry
• Self-claim board for uncovered games with transactional claiming
• Month-end payout reports and per-ref pay statements
• Skip for v1: in-app payments to refs, evaluation/mentoring workflows, tournament mode, multi-league assignor pools, native apps

Build RefBoard, a web app for independent youth leagues to assign and pay referees. Stack: Next.js (App Router), Supabase (Postgres, Auth, RLS), Stripe Billing for the league subscription. Magic-link auth for assignors and refs.

Data model: Leagues, Venues/Fields, Games (date, time, field, age group, level, required ref count and roles, e.g. 1 centre + 2 AR), Referees (certifications, age-group ceiling, pay grade), Availability blocks, Assignments (offered, accepted, declined, completed, no-show), PayRates (by role x age group, e.g. centre U14 55 USD).

Game import: CSV upload from the league's scheduling tool with column mapping, deduped by date+time+field on re-upload, since schedules change weekly.

Assignment flow: assignor opens a weekend view; each game shows eligible refs (available, certified for the level, no clash within a configurable travel window at another venue). Conflict checks are hard blocks, never warnings. Refs get an email offer with accept/decline links; unanswered offers expire in 48h.

Self-claim, the shortage-era feature: games still uncovered N days out (default 4) flip to open and appear on a claim board where any eligible ref grabs them first-come. Transactional claim so two refs cannot take the same slot.

Pay: completed assignments accrue at the matching pay rate. Month-end, generate a payout report (CSV for the treasurer, who pays by check or Zelle) and a per-ref statement page showing games worked and amounts owed.

Pages: assignor weekend board, claim board, ref portal (availability, my games, my pay), game import, pay rates, reports.

Pricing: 75 USD/month per league, unlimited refs.