Day After Super Bowl a National Holiday?
Photo: usatoday.com
If there’s one thing I’ve consistently been an advocate for every year in February, it’s that the Monday after the Super Bowl should be declared a U.S. federal holiday. Every year, millions of Americans go into work early Monday morning exhausted, hungover, or both. They struggle to make it through the workday, most likely not nearly as productive and ambitious as they are on a normal day. What a way to start off a five-day work week! But those are the people that actually go to work. It was estimated that 17 million people would be calling in sick today, with another three million expected to come in late and six million to leave work early.
Maybe you fall into the 17 million (estimated) people who took today off. Or maybe you fall into one of the categories of arriving late or leaving early. If not, there’s a good chance you know someone that does. In a survey of professional employees, 54% know someone who has called in sick or made an excuse for skipping work following the Super Bowl. The thing about all these numbers though, is the fact they keep rising every year. Next year, even more people will skip work because of the Super Bowl. At some point, it has to be in a serious discussion about declaring this day a federal holiday.
You may even wonder what the big deal is and think, “so what if people take the day off? Let them do what they want and let business go on.” Well, with so many people skipping work, it’s hard for business to actually “go on.” A few days ago it was estimated that the loss of productivity today would result in costing $4 billion. So now we’re not only talking about employees being lazy after a fun Sunday night, but a loss of a lot of money for American businesses.
One solution would be to hold the big game on Saturday night, and that’s plausible. But what fun is that? You still have just a two-day weekend. Give Americans what they want and give us a three-day weekend after Super Bowl Sunday. Football is the most popular sport in the country, and pretty much everybody watches the Super Bowl, even if they don’t follow the sport. To say it is a very big deal in the United States is a severe understatement. With only ten federal holidays anyway, what’s the big deal of adding one more? We promise to come into work Tuesday morning ready to get some major work done.
Garett