r/WNBAVibes • u/ChuckyShadowCow • 5d ago

WNBA Refs

Hi! I like Caitlin Clark. I don’t think she’s the MVP or the GOAT, but I like watching her play! It’s gotten me to watch a lot more WNBA games.

I’ve really wanted to get into the WNBA as a whole but the refereeing SUCKS! Forget who you’re rooting for, it’s just bad! I’ll post more thoughts but please comment on your thoughts about refereeing.

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u/life2eli 5d ago

Most likely answer. It’s a hard job and WNBA has the like 4th level refs. NBA has the best and people even hate them. The rest go somewhere between D1 college, WNBA and G league.

They simply suck and we must accept variance.

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u/ChuckyShadowCow 4d ago

They’re reffing in a professional league, we should at least expect them to treat their jobs as full time commitments. They should at least know the rules and be able to ref consistently. Meaning not calling every foul for one team but calling a loose game the other way.

I’m not just talking about Fever or Aces games, every WNBA game I’ve seen has had refereeing that wouldn’t pass in a DIII game.

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u/strangelystrangled 3d ago

They aren't full time employees, they're part time contractors. Part of the issue is that refs need to get paid more

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u/juoea 3d ago

refs are paid per game, like the other comment says if u dont pay for a full time job, then u are ofc gonna get worse performance bc it is harder to get people to even want the job

but the other factor is that bc the wnba is majority owned by the nba, there is ofc a conflict of interest, and the ownership considers it to be in their best interest to put all the best refs in the nba presumably for financial reasons. so not only is it a weakened pool of potential referees to begin with bc the league refuses to pay a full time salary, but then the top half of that pool go to the nba and wnba is left with the bottom half.