The Most Popular (and Expensive) Olympic Event: Watching the Games at Work
Business + Economy

The Most Popular (and Expensive) Olympic Event: Watching the Games at Work

© David Gray / Reuters

If watching the games at work were an Olympic sport, Americans would take the gold.

More than 55 million Americans say that they’d find a way to watch a live Olympic event during work hours, with a third saying that they’d stream the event while on the job, according to a new study by the Workforce Institute at Kronos.

Among those surveyed, 17 percent said that they would make up an excuse to leave early, come in late or call in sick in order to catch a live event, and nearly 30 percent said they’d try to change their work hours so that they would catch an event.

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Basketball, gymnastics and swimming represented the events most likely to inspire workers to tune in during the day. Nearly half of those surveyed said that watching basketball live would be worth missing work, while 40 percent said that they’d try to watch gymnastics during office hours.

More than half of American workers who planned to watch the games said that it would be appropriate to spend 30 minutes doing so during work, and another 18 percent said that 45 minutes would be appropriate.

A separate study by Office Pulse pegged the cost of lost productivity to businesses during the Olympic games at $5.4 billion.

Some companies have decided to embrace the interest from their employees, offering sanctioned times for workers to catch the games or encouraging office pools that help build camaraderie.

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