The reason that I went for an upgrade is to do more competitive games and learn from other senior/experienced referees.  I certainly benefited from refereeing with many other senior referees.  I occasionally refereed games with the National referees.  Those were very educational.  Of course, attending the Senior Referee Clinics were also most interesting and educational for me.  I met many National and International officials, learned from their experience. The Senior Clinics are also best place to listen and watch video highlights of the games officiated and commented by the National, International, and MLS referees.  The other aspect of the upgrade is the assessment.  Someone will be telling me (officially) how I officiated the game. Many times ARs don't pay attention to what you say during the pre-game coverage.  Especially, if you are not a good/experienced referee you might be leading the ARs in a wrong direction. If an assessor doesn't tell you your mistakes, you probably will never change.  If you don't do the higher level and more competitive games, your improvement will be very limited with only the yearly re-certification.  In a nut shell, I recommend everyone 18 and older upgrade and do more competitive games.

Esref Bilgihan, State Referee

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