Not sure I follow. Are you saying a 10% error rate is low? If so, maybe they’re just really good? After all, only the cream of the crop in umpire school even come close to smelling the major leagues.
Please elaborate. Isn’t table tennis basically self-refereed? What are the refs looking for?
Rugby referees have 8 more players on the field to keep track of than American football umpires. The advantage law means rugby refs don’t just blow the whistle when they see an infringement, they have to make a judgment call as to whether the innocent side now has an advantage (and how long that advantage will continue). The arcane technicalities of scrum, ruck and maul laws baffle pretty much everyone. Oh and I’d say the off-side rules in rugby are at least as difficult to judge as in football, and more complicated to boot.
Because the ball’s not round, right? 
Heh, awful unintentional pun on my part.
I don’t know. They don’t have line judges, IIRC, but the serve IIRC has to be legit and net-tips have about the same rules as regular tennis. Also, I don’t think the cats can bend way over the table, with a bunch of contact on the playing surface.
Not an expert, but that’s my answer.
Something I have read a lot about, even though it’s been a few years since I’ve played in pool halls with billiards table is three-cushion. McGoorty has a bunch of hard-luck tales about a member of the “Hate McGoorty” club about whether or not contact was made with the second ball. “It moved!” vs “It didn’t.” and so forth.
Like any close sport dependent on eagle-eyed judgment, I think there’s bound to be a bunch of poltics or just plain enmity involved.
ETA just for a casual fan back when I had a cable TV hookup, it’s certainly not self-referreed. At least that’s my understanding. It
s a highly competitive sport at most levels – and it just woldn’t stand to have the opponents just make any given call. They certain do have judges.
I do have a new one, though – given the very exact standards for what is (supposed to) constitute a valid pitch, I think coaches there have their throats cut in advance. I follow baseball in a good year (not for a few years, but three or hour years ago). So many specific rules about windup and trying to pick off runners – that’s gotta be way hard to apply the million bajillion rules about pitching form.
I would say football is far and away the leader if you add up all the refereeing required per play. Just the sheer number of rules each player is capable of breaking in a play.* But it you divide it by the number of Refs that are out there , the equation changes dramatically.
Let’s just take the left tackle. In a 8 normal second play he can
1.False start,
2.Line up in the neutral zone
3.Line up off the line and cause in bad formation
4.Be an ineligible-eligible receiver if not covered.
5. illegally be downfield on a pass
6. Hold
7. Hands to the face.
8. Engage the legs of a rusher already engaged.
9. Trip
10. Interlock legs(okay that one is very rare)
11. Illegally touch a forward pass.
12. Illegally assist a runner(rare and never called )
13. Facemask
14. Block in the back.
15. Clipping.
16 I guess it’s possible they could pick for a receiver too, but I can’t remember seeing it called.
I’m sure there are more as well, but that’s all on the top of my head.
Come on, man, I know that. It would be kind of funny to see some orca 600 pound guy getting wheeled into a blocking position. Maybe like a nerf wheelbarrow.
OK, so I’m easily amused. And, yes, I like football in general – not snarking on those big block and tackles masquerading as atheletes. Truth be told, it’s still amazing to me that a guy pushing 300 lbs can have a ton of speed on the gridiron – good for them. To me that’s every bit as impressive as some skinny little waif running a quick 200m.
I’ll post this link every time anybody make this joke. Phil Luckett made the correct ruling on that coin toss.
I referee high school football. It’s a difficult job that you really have to work at to get right. I’d say that basketbell, where the refs are intimately involved with the action, stopping play constantly, is more difficult.
There has actually been a 400 lb player in the NFL. :eek:
I looked at a couple of NFL rosters at random. Every one of them had 10-12 guys over 300 lbs.
HBO’s Real Sports did a great story a few years back on the health problems these big guys face because of the weight once they quit playing. Very sad. One of the players they interviewed had actually died before the piece aired.
And that’s just their listed weight. Many o-line and defensive tackles grow well above 350 lbs. during the season.
Any sport that bases victory on judging based on style or some arbitrary criteria, like figure skating or boxing when there’s no knockout.
Sports with set criteria, like boundaries and/or specific movements, are much easier to officiate. The reason why bad calls in those sports are such a big deal is because they’re so rare. Contrast that with the aforementioned boxing and figure skating where corruption is rampant because it’s just too easy for the judges to get away with it. Too many blown calls in football and you lose your job, but blow a few in figure skating and it’s just your opinion unless it’s so egregious that they simply can’t look the other way.
I disagree, Those are the easiest to judge, It is so damn hard to be demonstratively wrong. You can half-ass it drunk and be as good as anybody else.
I have to ref squash games at my club every now and then. I hate it. Line calls are ok, but refs in squash have to call “Lets” and “Strokes” when there’s interference. It’s so much subtlety and speed, and people get really hot under the caller if they perceive you blew the call. Which, IME, is every time you don’t agree with them! 
Most difficult sport to referee or umpire?
Monday Night Football
I disagree. As a former high school football official we were basically taught to officiate under the idea that rules are to guide… not constrain (my wording). In other words don’t look for things to rule on; and sometimes it’s OK to let things go that have absolutely no bearing on the play. i.e. someone’s holding on a play that has already gone past? Don’t call it. Also a lot of football infractions are not of the type where you have to look at an individual player. Consider off sides or encroachment as an example. You’re watching an entire line at one time. Most of the penalties that are individual type infractions, i.e. holding, roughing, etc. happen after the ‘herd’ has thinned out, and you only have to focus on two or three guys at a time. Not only that, but in football you usually have at least 4 officials and probably more. Lead Referee (white hat), umpire, two line judges and often a couple of line judges as well. There’s just not that many people you ever have to watch in football. As a (former) NCAA umpire I can agree somewhat with the OP about being a plate umpire; but not because of maintaining a strike zone; but because of what is basically the unwritten rules of baseball. For example the strike zone in most rule books is defined as armpits to knees. The reality is if you called that you’d get crucified. So the most important thing is simply be consistent; and you’ll usually be OK. IMHO that was the problem with the Braves game last Friday night on the infield fly fiasco. The ref was ‘technically’ right; but the reality is that in MLB you NEVER see a ball hit that deep be called out under the infield fly rule.
My vote goes for basketball. Every call in basketball is a judgement call. And let me tell you, that makes it rough. The only think you have to go on is that you’re more or less calling it the same as most of the other officials do. At least in baseball you can definitively say if a runner beat the throw or not; or if a ball was touched before the runner left base. In basketball where contact is allowed; and you have to do things like rule if it was a foul based on a rule that says something like: -A Player Shall Not Touch the ball when it is above the basket ring and within the imaginary cylinder. That my friends is a difficult sport to officiate.