Sports

CNN Is Getting Absolutely Destroyed For Dubious March Madness ‘Lost Productivity’ Claim

#March Madness
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Every single year someone comes out with a number that supposedly reveals how much money March Madness, AKA the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, is costing employers.

This year it’s CNN that decided to take a stab at it.

“We love watching the NCAA tournament for a variety of reasons, but it costs employers in lost productivity, right?” asked CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield. “We’re just so distracted?”

“We’re very distracted during this time of year, Fred,” replied her guest.

“All of the time filling our brackets, doing the research, just to see the brackets get busted right into the tournament, and then watching the games during work hours. It’s costing employers in lost productivity. Lost productivity up to $17.3 billion this year. That’s up a billion dollars from a year ago.

“And that’s because we have more Americans working than they did a year ago. Wages are also up, so that’s increasing lost productivity, and we’re spending more time researching our brackets.”

“Oh my goodness,” a shocked Whitfield responded. “That’s big money when you put it that way.”

Related: Brent Musburger Reveals The Unusual Origin Of The Term ‘March Madness’

Yes, when you put it that way March Madness does sound pretty bad.

Unfortunately for CNN, putting it that way isn’t going over very well with college basketball fans.

“But since March Madness has been going on for decades, and therefore productivity never existed on those dates in the first place, is it actually ‘lost?'” another fan questioned.

“Let’s get it up to 18 billion next year guys,” someone else suggested.

“Can someone present me the formula for figuring this number out?” another fan asked.

“Imagine believing this figure remotely accurate. The people that made up the number wasted more time then people doing brackets,” tweeted another March Madness fan.

So, is that $17.3 billion in lost productivity due to March Madness in addition to the $15 billion us employees are already wasting every week just dicking around on the regular?