With Selection Sunday in the rear-view, March Madness is now officially on. And along with the brackets and the bar bets come the opportunity for impressing your friends. Here are the fun facts and neat numbers to crunch along with the nachos.
The morale boost of March Madness
Global staffing firm Robert Half, in a recent report, declared the tournament an overall morale booster for the office:
72: Percentage of senior managers who thought college basketball and the related activities (brackets, happy hours to watch games and so forth) had a positive impact on staff morale
52: Percentage that saw a productivity benefit
75: Percent of companies organize sports-related festivities. These include friendly competitions (45 percent) and wearing team apparel (43 percent), among other activities.
Then there’s the bad news…
49: percent of employees said they are distracted at work by sports, up from 38 percent in 2016. More male professionals (64 percent) admitted to being sidetracked than women (33 percent). Employees ages 18 to 34 (66 percent) reported being distracted the most, compared to those ages 35 to 54 (43 percent) and 55 and older (27 percent).
Our friends at WalletHub also had some choice nuggets of information:
$4 Billion: Corporate losses due to unproductive workers during March Madness
90 Percent: Of workers who say March Madness-related activities help build better camaraderie
70 Million: Tournament brackets completed
129 Million: Votes cast in the presidential election in 2016.
$142 Million: Estimated economic impact from Final Four on the city of Minneapolis
Twice: The amount of money wagered on the Super Bowl is wagered on March Madness
77 Million: Social media impressions from the 2018 national championship (up 16 percent from 2017)
17 Million: Barrels of American beer produced each March
19 Percent: Increase in pizza orders when a home team wins vs. when it loses
1 in 92 Quintillion: Odds of having a perfect bracket. (Real fact: You are more likely to be killed by a vending machine than you are to have a perfect March Madness bracket). A vending machine. Really.
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