Beginning this year, three umpires and a standby umpire will be assigned to each Super Regional site. Standby umpires will be on-site and participate in the same manner as the three assigned umpires, except that standby umpires will work only in the event of an emergency, i.e., umpire injury, illness or family emergency that takes an assigned umpire out of the tournament. Standby umpires shall attend and participate in all meetings and pregame and post-game discussions.

Standby umpires will be selected from those umpires within 500 miles from the super regional site and will be paid a flat fee of $200 and the same per diem and expenses as the assigned umpires. If the standby umpire works any part of any game, the standby umpire will receive the tournament fee instead of the standby flat fee.

Once the tournament has commenced, if a standby umpire works, the standby umpire will complete the tournament in place of the removed umpire. In other words, an injured or removed umpire will not re-enter the tournament. However, if an assigned umpire is late arriving to the tournament through no fault of his or her own, and the standby umpire has substituted for the assigned umpire, the originally assigned umpire will resume working the regular tournament schedule with the game following their arrival.