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The World Cup Kept Workers At Home
“I got the soccer sniffles.” // Illustration by Kate Walker
American workers have missed more days of work to watch the World Cup than for any other major cultural event in recent memory.
The Big Play: As US interest in the World Cup has reached unprecedented levels, it was only natural that workers would fake a cough to stay home and watch the game or meet up with friends at a bar to catch it together. The ratings on Peacock and Fox prove as much, especially considering that most matches are played during working hours.
Behind The Absences: A new study by workplace management and security platform Envoy found that Americans have been calling in sick to watch World Cup matches.
On the day of the USA vs. Belgium match, work attendance was down 8.5% compared to the three-month Monday average.
The day after the match, attendance was down a whopping 26% — probably because people were hungover (either from adrenaline or alcohol). That “Knockout Tuesday” attendance drop, as Envoy calls it, was 10x larger than the day after the Super Bowl.
Workers started returning to the office as non-USA matches took place, though attendance remained lower than usual.
Blue-chip companies like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs tried to mitigate the issue by encouraging workers to simply work from home on match days — allowing people to get some work done while keeping an eye on the game.
Final Time Sheet: All the absences do have a material effect. HR software provider UKG found that the World Cup has cost the US economy $11.7 billion in lost productivity and $17 billion worldwide. That seems like a fair trade-off for the $40 billion in economic activity FIFA expects the tournament to generate in the US (although many analysts believe that number is inflated).
Still, there’s simply no avoiding the distraction. It occurs to some degree during every major cultural event, from the Olympics to the Barbenheimer phenomenon. FOMO always beats work.
Next Tournament: Maybe next time around, a majority of companies will just show matches at the office — talk about a great team-building exercise.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.