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World Cup is no March Madness in sapping productivity
It may be the World Cup, but when it comes to sapping productivity in the United States the global soccer tournament still has a thing or two to learn from March Madness and the National Football League.
Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which often measures lost workplace productivity, said many U.S. fans will tune in for the quadrennial soccer tournament, which kicks off Friday in South Africa, but the event still trails the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, dubbed March Madness, and other events.
“Soccer simply has not caught on with the majority of American sports fans, Challenger CEO John Challenger said in a statement.
“However, the World Cup is a unique event and could attract a lot of viewers who might not typically go out of the way to watch a match,” he added. “Even as the sport grows in popularity, though, it will have far less of an impact on workplace productivity than the March Madness basketball tournament, for example.”
In Challenger’s nonscientific, nonbinding ranking of sporting events with the most potential to affect workplace productivity, the World Cup ranked No. 4:
No. 1 — NCAA men’s basketball tournament (aka March Madness): Widespread office tournament pools and the fact that about half of the first 32 games are played during working hours makes this “the granddaddy of productivity sappers,” the Challenger firm said. Proof of that was the use of the ”Boss Button,” which instantly hides the webcast behind a fake spreadsheet, 3.3 million times this year.
No. 2 — NFL fantasy football: Millions of fantasy football participants manage their teams from their office. Talk about drafts and trades adds up over the 17-week season, the firms said.
Check Out Line: Duke wins, but there’s another bracket to fill
Check out a different kind of tournament bracket still underway.
The Duke Blue Devils may have won yet another college basketball title Monday night, but consumers can still make their “Sweet 16″ picks in Consumerist.com’s annual “Worst Company in America” tournament, which runs through April 26.
In its fifth year, the website, owned by Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, lets consumers vote for their least favorite companies in matchups much like the NCAA tournament. Starting with 32 “teams,” the tournament pairs companies in votes in which the “winner” (think about it, in a worst company vote you want to lose) advances to face the next competitor.
In the first round this year, Bank of America beat Citibank, GM beat Toyota and in an “upset” Cash4Gold beat defending “champion” AIG. Other companies that advanced included Walmart, Ticketmaster, United Airlines, Best Buy, Apple and Comcast, which has lost in the title game the last two years.
In addition to AIG, past winners have included Halliburton, Recording Industry Association of America and Countrywide. In last year’s final, AIG whipped Comcast 3,528 to 1,968 as voters took their frustration over the recession out on a company that was bailed out by the U.S. government.
“They were just constantly in the headlines,” Consumerist.com co-managing editor Ben Popken said of AIG. “They became a real focal point for what went wrong with the economy.”
Consumers nominate companies to compete in the annual tournament, which was created as a tongue-in-cheek way for shoppers to “bite back” using social media and the Internet, according to Consumerist.com. To be considered for inclusion the website now requires that companies must regularly provide products or services to consumers.
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