If you’re reading this from the comfort of an ergonomically designed office chair tucked away in one of America’s vast cubicle farms, take a peek at the person in the cube next to you: There’s a good chance they might be part of a billion dollar problem for US businesses. According to a recent study by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, about 37 million workers take part in fantasy football leagues and spend about an hour a week at work checking stats and managing their teams, which the report estimates is costing companies more than $1 billion in lost productivity. The emotional toll of having Aaron Brooks as your fantasy quarterback, by the way, is incalculable.
But fantasy football is hardly the worst offender when it comes to productivity loss. A similar study conducted by the Chicago-based outplacement consulting firm found that businesses lose more than $3 billion in productivity during the NCAA basketball tournament. I find this figure a little hard to believe, though, because March Madness is such a crap shoot it literally takes me five minutes to fill out my bracket. Of course, maybe that explains my 0-10 record in the office pool.
But judge not all you non-fantasy sports fans lest ye be judged: We all know you’ve been bidding on eBay for that vintage set of Star Wars action figures, and the Challenger Grey report says that trolling the online auction site wastes just as much work time as fantasy football. (By the way, if anyone spots a Darth Vader carrying case in good condition, let me know.)
Given these statistics it seems rather incredible that this is the most productive country on Earth, but then again, we’ve become a nation of multi-taskers, right? We can check our stock portfolios on Yahoo! and book trips to Cabo on Expedia and still finish that 500-page proposal on time.
This is all the more reason for us to relax and enjoy the long holiday weekend this Labor Day. We work hard juggling work and Googling for racy pictures of the Olsen twins, we deserve a day off.
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