🏈 How Many Officials Do We Need?

Growing our northern football crew

📊 Using Arbiter game data from 2023 to 2026

All numbers come from the Arbiter assignment data, through mid-October 2026. "Northern" means games at fields north of the gap between Otter Valley and Middlebury. "Varsity" means Varsity, Varsity Coed, and state playoff games. JV is left out.

🎯 Our Two Goals

🚫 No more Thursday night games
☝️ Each official works only one varsity game a weekend

🤔 How many officials do we need for each goal?

📋 Where We Are Now

👥 41 northern officials worked varsity in 2026
🏈 76 varsity games in 10 weeks
🦓 Each game needs 5 officials
📅 Almost all games are on Friday or Saturday

📉 Officials Each Year

The north grew this year. The south keeps getting smaller.

🗓️ Goal 1: How Many Thursday Games?

Bar chart of northern Thursday varsity games each year: 7, 7, 4, 6.

We play 4 to 7 Thursday games a year. Most weeks have none.

🔀 Move Thursday to Friday

Stacked bar chart of officials needed each Friday in 2026 if Thursday games move to Friday. Two Fridays reach 35.

Two Fridays would need 35 officials.

📊 Weeks With Thursday Games (2026)

Weekend	Friday now	From Thu	Total
Sep 4	20	5	25
Sep 11	5	10	15
Oct 9	25	5	30
Oct 16	25	10	35

Our busiest Friday this year already needed 35 (Sep 25).

✅ Goal 1 Answer

🦓 The busiest Friday needs 35 officials.

🙋 Not everyone is free every week.

🔢 If 8 out of 10 are free, we need 44.

💪 We have 41. We need 3 more.

On Sep 25 we needed 35 officials. We got there by borrowing 4 from the south. "8 out of 10 free" is a guess, not a measured number.

🔁 Goal 2: Many Officials Work Twice

Bar chart of officials working two varsity games in one weekend in 2026. Most weekends 7 to 16, highest 19 on Sep 25.

Most weekends, about 11 officials work 2 varsity games.

🦓 Spots to Fill Each Weekend

Bar chart of varsity spots each weekend in 2026, from 20 to 55, with a line at 41 officials.

On 3 weekends, we had more spots than officials!

📊 One Game Each: How Many?

Weekend	Spots	We need *	More
😌 Easy	35	44	+3
🙂 Normal	40	50	+9
😅 Busy	45	57	+16
😰 Busiest	55	69	+28

* If 8 out of 10 officials are free that weekend.

✅ Goal 2 Answer

👥 We need about 69 officials.

➕ That is 28 more than we have now.

🎉 Good news: this fixes Goal 1 too!

With 69 officials, a 35-person Friday is easy to cover. So if we reach Goal 2, we also reach Goal 1.

🚪 Officials Come and Go

Season	Stopped 👋	Started 🆕
2024	7	6
2025	4	2
2026	2	7

About 1 in 8 officials stop each year. About 5 new ones start. So we stay about the same size.

"Stopped" means they worked varsity one year and not the next. Over three years, 13 of 111 stopped. That is about 12 percent, or 1 in 8.

📈 How Fast Can We Grow?

Line chart from 2026 to 2032 for 5, 10, 15 and 20 new officials a year, with goal lines at 44 and 69.

Each line is a different number of new officials each year.

📊 When Do We Reach Our Goals?

New each year	Goal 1 (44)	Goal 2 (69)
5 (like now)	Never	Never
10	2027	2035
15	2027	2030
20	2027	2028

We need 15 to 20 new officials each year.

This assumes about 1 in 8 officials stop each year, like the last three years. More officials means more people stopping too, so growth slows down over time.

🧭 What About the South?

👥 21 varsity officials now (26 in 2023)
🆕 Only 1 new varsity official this year
🤝 They helped us on Sep 25 with 4 officials
⚠️ They cannot fill our gap. They need to grow too.

⚠️ Things to Keep in Mind

🔢 "8 out of 10 free" is a guess. Let's ask our officials!
🎓 New officials often start with JV games first
🏟️ Some Thursday games may be there for a reason, like lights or fields
🧮 Our numbers are small. One person can change a lot.

🏁 What We Need

Goal	Officials	More
🚫 No Thursdays	44	+3
☝️ One game each	69	+28

🌱 To get there: 15 to 20 new officials a year.

🙋 Questions?

Thank you!