FlightWay / Careers / Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials

Creative & Media

Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials

Officiate at competitive athletic or sporting events.

Sector: Creative & Media
Preparation: Zone 2 — some preparation needed
O*NET code: 27-2023.00

What you'll actually do

The activities O*NET rates highest for this occupation, most important first. Numbers are out of 100.

Getting Information

a major part of the work — rated 76/100 for importance.
Making Decisions and Solving Problems

a major part of the work — rated 75/100 for importance.
Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge

a major part of the work — rated 72/100 for importance.
Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events

a major part of the work — rated 71/100 for importance.
Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates

a major part of the work — rated 71/100 for importance.
Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships

a regular part of the work — rated 66/100 for importance.

Officiate at competitive athletic or sporting events. Detect infractions of rules and decide penalties according to established regulations. Includes all sporting officials, referees, and competition judges.

What it takes

Two numbers per line: the level the work expects, and how important it is to doing the job well. Both are O*NET ratings, already on a 0–100 scale.

Skills

Speaking

Needed at a basic working level (45/100), and rated 66/100 for importance.
Critical Thinking

Needed at a solid working level (50/100), and rated 60/100 for importance.
Active Listening

Needed at a basic working level (43/100), and rated 56/100 for importance.
Judgment and Decision Making

Needed at a basic working level (43/100), and rated 56/100 for importance.
Monitoring

Needed at a basic working level (45/100), and rated 53/100 for importance.

Knowledge

English Language

Needed at a solid working level (49/100), and rated 61/100 for importance.
Education and Training

Needed at a solid working level (48/100), and rated 48/100 for importance.
Administration and Management

Needed at a basic working level (43/100), and rated 46/100 for importance.
Customer and Personal Service

Needed at a basic working level (41/100), and rated 42/100 for importance.

Abilities

Far Vision

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.
Oral Expression

Needed at a solid working level (54/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.
Oral Comprehension

Needed at a solid working level (55/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.
Near Vision

Needed at a solid working level (50/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.

How people get in

O*NET places this occupation in Zone 2 — some preparation needed. That is a statement about what employers typically require, not a rule about you.

Education

A high-school diploma is the usual starting point.

Experience

Some prior work experience helps but is rarely required.

Training

Expect a few months to a year of on-the-job training.

What it pays

These are typical creative compensation bands by employer tier — sector-level figures, not a measured salary for Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials specifically. Treat them as the shape of the market, then check a real posting for the number.

WPP · Pentagram · Google

$100k – $180k

Mid-size Agencies

$70k – $110k

Freelance & Boutique

$45k – $80k

How the work tends to run

Each line below is read off a single O*NET activity rating for this occupation — named, so you can disagree with it.

The day is built around getting information more than anything else (76/100).From “Getting Information”

How FlightWay scores your fit against this

No black box. Here is the whole method, factor by factor.

1. You answer a short quiz: Your answers build a profile across the same 161 O*NET dimensions this page is describing — skills, knowledge, abilities and work activities. Same axes, so the comparison is like-for-like.
2. We correlate the two profiles: Fit is a mean-centered cosine — a correlation between the SHAPE of your profile and the shape of Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials. Centering matters: raw similarity between any two occupations sits at 0.70–0.85 because all work shares a common profile, so without it every career would look like a match.
3. The number you see is personality fit only: "Would I want this work" and "am I ready for this work" are different questions, and averaging them answers neither. So readiness — what your résumé, coursework and projects prove — is scored separately and shown next to fit, never blended into it.
4. Every factor is visible: You can open any match and see which dimensions pushed it up and which pulled it down. If you disagree with the number, you can see exactly where it came from.

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See your fit for Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials

Ten questions, about 90 seconds. You get your match against Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials and 782+ other real careers — with the reasoning shown.

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Occupational data on this page comes from the O*NET 30.3 Database, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL/ETA. FlightWay is not endorsed by, and USDOL/ETA is not responsible for, anything built on that data — see our terms. What is ours is the comparison, the score and the plan.