The Beastie Boys said “you gotta fight for your right to party.” They didn’t say anything about having to go to work the next day.
This is Super Bowl weekend, and even if your team is not in the game, our national football fever kicks in and most everyone develops a rooting interest, whether it be for one team, against another, for the usually overblown halftime musical performance or for the commercials, which some years are more interesting than the game itself. Federal government statistics project that about $55 million is spent annually on Super Bowl parties, a significant chunk of that on the estimated 16.5 million chicken wings that will be eaten.
The game has a late start time, with kickoff set for 5:30 p.m., but with additional commercials and pageantry, along with the extended halftime, the game could stretch to four hours in length. Combine that with the big-event party atmosphere and ample support of the game’s alcohol sponsors and what results is Monday-after-Super-Bowl absenteeism of about 1.5 million and $170 million in lost productivity, according to the International Business Times, which added that about 4.4 million workers go in late the day after the big game.
Last week, Heinz Kraft has launched a petition to make the Monday after the Super Bowl a national holiday. Fortune and other media outlets reported that the food giant will give its salaried staff a free vacation day on Monday. Nicole Kulwicki, a marketing executive for Heinz Kraft, told Bloomberg, “We wanted to get behind an initiative that we know people feel strongly about.”
While the Heinz Kraft effort seems like more of a marketing campaign than a sincere effort, talk of making that Monday a holiday gets kicked around this time every year. Former Kansas City Chiefs kicker Nick Lowery told me: “I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think that is for people to discuss with their bosses one-on-one and collectively negotiate (that) one business at a time.”
Another consideration is the number of national holidays that already exist in January and February. While currently this is a conversation among pockets of football fans, Lowery said he doesn’t expect any movement on this until those pockets grow.
What may be more likely and I believe is a lot more feasible is moving the Super Bowl to Saturday night. ESPN Radio personality John Weiner, better known at Stugotz, has spent the past two weeks advocating for a Saturday night Super Bowl. While that move makes sense, it faces some challenges.
A few years ago, Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch explored the topic and was told by an NFL spokesman that the league is not about to break away from its Super Bowl Sunday tradition. A sports consultant also pointed out that a move to Saturday would affect the game’s economics; hotel stays and spending would be cut by a day, since most fans attending the Sunday game typically fly into the destination city on Friday and leave on Monday. Moving the game to Saturday moves departure day from Monday to Sunday.
So for now, the best way to handle Super Bowl Monday is to exhibit some restraint on Super Bowl Sunday. Oh, and Lowery thinks the Patriots’ experience will carry them to victory over the Falcons, 27-24.
