Why Isn’t “Super Bowl Monday” A Holiday Yet?
Written by Phil Harris of WKQC
Do you wish the day after the Super Bowl could be a holiday? You’re not alone. According to a new survey commissioned by DraftKings, almost half of sports fans in the U.S. want Super Bowl Monday to be a day off from work or school. I can’t believe it isn’t all sports fans.
Not only would nearly half of U.S. sports fans like to have Super Bowl Monday off, but they’d also be willing to give up one of their other work holidays. About one in ten even said they’d prefer to work Thanksgiving or Christmas. That might be going a bit far. But what about President’s Day? This year it falls on Monday, February 15th. Move it up one week and the problem is solved.
We have this debate every year. I think a lot of managers would also be in favor of making Super Bowl Monday a working holiday. Apparently, a lot of folks are taking the day off anyway, whether they get pre-approved for it or not. A new Harris Poll survey commissioned by The Workforce Institute finds:
- An estimated 16.1 million employees are likely to miss work on the Monday after the Super Bowl.
- Of those missing the day, about 8.8 million have been pre-approved for the day off.
- But not everyone’s so ethical, with about 4.4 million workers planning to call in sick.
- And another 2.9 million are planning to “ghost” their employers, up from 1.5 million last year.
- But that’s not all, 10.2 million workers plan to start work late on Super Bowl Monday.
- And some folks don’t know what they’ll do, with 10.2 million saying they’ll decide their Super Bowl Monday plan either Sunday night or Monday morning, so the numbers could be even higher.
If workplace productivity is already expected to take a hit, why not give everyone the day off so we can stop pretending that we actually want to leave the house on that Monday? Mighty Swell Spiked Seltzer has actually started a Change.org petition to make “Super Monday” a national holiday.
Here’s another thought: Why can’t the Super Bowl be played on a Saturday? By February, the college football season has been finished for weeks so there wouldn’t be any conflict. These are all ideas worth considering.
