While I stated that soccer was my primary passion, I also enjoy Tennis a whole lot, and have been contemplating on becoming a professional tennis umpire. More specifically, I would like to become a chair umpire (the main umpire of the match, with linesmen occupying the sides of the court). Chair umpires get paid a normal salary: $20,000-$30,000 a year, with top umpires earning up to $60,000. Obviously, there is a special training that needs to be done, but even so it takes years to gain the experience to become a top level official. I guess I am interested in this job because I am passionate for tennis, and let's face it, the chair umpire has the best seat in the house, plus he/she gets to shake the players hands, communicate with them, etc.
    Nowadays. the chair umpire has an aide in deciding and overruling calls in the form of Hawk-Eye, a computer technology which traces the motion of the ball thus enabling officials to make extremely accurate (down to the millimeter) calls whether the balls is out or in. Hands down, the ultra accurate (99.9%) Hawk-Eye revolutionazes the game of tennis as it basically always makes the right decision, the ball is either in or out, and because the computer says so, the tennis players cannot lash out at the referee (not to mention it removes unbiased calls). The major disadvantage of Hawk-Eye does not lie in its computer accuracy; instead, it lies in the capacity in which is used, more specifically the rules. A player has about 3-5 seconds to make up his/her mind and make the challenge (the player has a specific number of challenges allowed throughout a set) so the Hawk-Eye computer can do its job. Unfortunately, it's the reinforcement of that rule that's the major problem of the technology (many referees show some bias in allowing how much time a player has to look at the mark and decide whether to challenge or not, with instances of about a minute being present, which would cause enormous irritation).
    Ultimately the decision of becoming a tennis umpire nowadays needs to be complemented with the advances in technology; in other words, a good umpire needs to know how to make good use of the technology.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/22/chair-umpire-tennis-tennisbiz08-forbeslife-cx_ea_0822ump.html
http://www.tennis-x.com/fun/funchair.shtml
http://www.hawkeyeinnovations.co.uk/
http://www.tennis.com/features/general/features.aspx?id=187226