A new report suggests that college basketball fans keeping track of this year’s March Madness could cost the United States economy a massive sum of money.
The madness is here. Certain events on the sports calendar garner a lot of attention from diehard and casual sports fans. The Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the World Cup are examples. Another is the massive tournament known to fans as March Madness.
The 2025 edition of the event kicks off this week and will be one of the biggest stories in the country. One of the unique elements of the NCAA Tournament is like the Olympics and World Cup, it lasts for several weeks. But unlike those events, guessing who will win every game of the bracket has become a hugely popular part of the moment.
Well, it seems that keeping track of games in this year’s tourney could cost the US economy billions, according to Diane Duenez of Straight Arrow News.
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“On average, working fans plan to spend 2.4 hours per day checking scores, tracking brackets, or streaming games while on the clock,” Duenez wrote. “With seven tournament game days falling on weekdays, that equates to 16.8 hours of lost work time per employee.
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, each lost hour of productivity costs the U.S. economy $107.22. Therefore, the average worker who watches March Madness loses $1,801.30 in productivity over the course of the tournament.”
Duenez crunched the numbers based on results from a survey from The Action Network that claims workers paying attention to March Madness this year will cost the US economy $20 billion in productivity.
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