When we speak to sports leagues, teams, clubs, and tournaments, customers often ask if Silbo is an Arbiter alternative. Both companies operate in the referee management space, so it’s a natural question.
In amateur sports, even with the latest technological advancements applied to the process of assigning game officials, current software and web-based “solutions” for referee management have been mainly concerned with assigners. Arbiter is one of these solutions. Arbiter offers you, the assigner, “a unified view of all your officials, their availability, contact information, even pictures. Then you can make your assignments from the master database that you maintain. It’s easy and efficient so you can handle all the details and changes like a true professional.” [Author’s note: As of March 6, 2020, Arbiter has removed that language from their website.]
In this sense, Silbo is an Arbiter alternative. We, too, provide a unified view of officials and their data. And we do it better by removing the assigner from the equation. Where Arbiter allows the assignment of officials, Silbo democratizes officiating and gives officials choice over which games they want to work. Silbo is the ideal Arbiter alternative because we have a more robust mobile app, a faster web interface, weekly direct-deposit payments, and are the only solution that has historical data on referee wages, meaning we can optimize your budget and spending.
Tools like Arbiter, Game Officials, Horizon Web Ref, Assignr, Blue Zebra, and others make it easier for an assigner to more easily manage officials, which is nice for assigners. But these tools do not leverage the interconnectedness of officials. Silbo, meanwhile, does.
Contact our sales team to learn more about the referee management solution that simplifies the process of getting officials for your games.