''Arbiter'' (formerly ArbiterSports) is a sports and school activity management software company that provides scheduling, registration, payment, and eligibility solutions for athletic departments, school districts, and officiating organizations. The company is based in Sandy, Utah. In 2025, the compan
rebranded from ArbiterSports to Arbiter
to reflect its expanded role beyond officiating technology.

History

The Arbiter assigning system was created in 1984 by Advanced Business Technology, at the request of the Utah High School Activities Association, who hired ABT to build a computerized method of assigning sports officials to matches and managing their assignments. Known as TheArbiter, the software was originally released on the

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

platform, then for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

in 1997. Arbiter was released as a

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

in 2003, known as TheArbiter.NET. Dave Yeast, former National Coordinator of Baseball Umpires for the NCAA, has served as the firm's vice president of officiating education.

Acquisition by the NCAA

Arbiter was acquired by the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

in September 2008. The NCAA said their purpose in the acquisition, along with their acquisition of LLC the same month, was to improve the quality and consistency of officiating at all levels of play.

2020 data breach

Arbiter experienced a

data breach A data breach, also known as data leakage, is "the unauthorized exposure, disclosure, or loss of personal information". Attackers have a variety of motives, from financial gain to political activism, political repression, and espionage. There ...

in 2020 and was charged with a

class action lawsuit A class action A class action is a form of lawsuit. Class Action may also refer to: * ''Class Action'' (film), 1991, starring Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio * Class Action (band), a garage house band * "Class Action" (''Teenage R ...

. The court did not favor any decisions and a settlement was reached upon by all the parties involved for $26 million USD in 2021.

Notes

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External links

Arbiter webpageArbiterLive Game SchedulesArbiterPay - pay officials and event-workers
Sports companies Sports officiating technology Sports software American companies established in 1984 Software companies established in 1984