If you're anticipating being "sick" on the Monday after the Super Bowl, you're not alone. More than 15 percent of people who watch the game this year could come down with a vague and mysterious illness after the Los Angeles Rams play the New England Patriots in Atlanta, The Washington Post reports.
With some 17 million people planning to call in sick on Monday, as found in a survey commissioned by The Workforce Institute, the so-called "Super Bowl Fever" or "Budweiser Flu" has even sparked pushes to make the day after the NFL championship a national holiday. Approximately 100 million people are expected to watch the Super Bowl in 2019, and a potential $4 billion could be lost in productivity from viewers either calling in sick the next day, or chatting about the game at work.
"Employees may be feeling more secure in their employment and are more likely to have other options, and think it isn't going to be a deal breaker if they call in sick," Joyce Maroney, executive director of The Workforce Institute at Kronos, told the Post.
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Some brands are taking advantage of the bug that's going around. AdWeek reports that Jack in the Box plans to have a one-day sale of munchie boxes available through DoorDash, because everyone knows the best cure for a hangov — I mean, for the flu — is chicken nuggets and curly fries.
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