Staying ‘Mahomes’: Record number skipping work with Super Bowl sickies

With Super Bowl LIX upon us, American employers face record absenteeism on the Monday after the Chiefs-Eagles match-up on Sunday, US time – leading the masses to call for a national holiday.

The storylines surrounding the upcoming Superbowl LIX match-up between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles are endless – Are the Chiefs cheaters? Will Travis Kelce propose to Taylor Swift? Is Kendrick Lamar going to perform his Drake diss at the halftime show? Is quarterback Patrick Mahomes the G.O.A.T. with another Super Bowl win? No one knows as of yet.

One plugged-up storyline for the big game, however, is that record numbers of workers across the US will not be facing the music the following day.

According to a report by UKG, 22.6 million employees plan to miss work the day after the Super Bowl – an increase from 16.1 million in the previous year. Of this group, 3.2 million plan on pulling a sickie to get out of their job duties.

The issue for employers doesn’t stop there as of the workers who plan to work Monday, four in 10 (40 per cent) admitted that they’ll be distracted by the Super Bowl coverage – an increase from 28 per cent in the previous year.

In overall productivity, over a third (36 per cent) who plan to watch the Super Bowl noted that they expect their productivity throughout the following day to take a dive – up from 30 per cent in 2024.

Once again, the storylines for this year’s Super Bowl seem to outweigh the previous year, with 72 per cent of employed Americans planning to watch the Super Bowl primarily to see the halftime show headlined, of course, by 22-time Grammy award winner Kendrick Lamar.

This widespread absenteeism and predicted productivity dip has led to a growing debate around making the Monday after the Super Bowl a national holiday, with 43 per cent of US workers agreeing with this notion. Another factor was that 56 per cent of US workers wished their organisation gave them the Monday off.

Although the support in Australia may not be as profound for the Super Bowl, there’s a similar frenzy of absenteeism around Australia-based events such as the Melbourne Cup, AFL Grand Final, and Formula One Grand Prix.

For these events, a Deputy report showed that “a recurring trend in absenteeism” occurred before the AFL Grand final in both 2022 and 2023, according to Emma Seymour, CFO at Deputy.

“In both years, and across all shift work industries, absenteeism spiked most significantly on Thursdays, ahead of the public holiday on Friday, as Victorians geared up for an extra long weekend,” Seymour said.

As reported by the Herald Sun, absenteeism right across Victoria shift work industries increased to 24.24 per cent the day before and increased more than 2 per cent to 23.59 per cent the day after the race that stops the nation.

Kace O'Neill

Kace O'Neill is a Graduate Journalist for HR Leader. Kace studied Media Communications and Maori studies at the University of Otago, he has a passion for sports and storytelling.