Where the World Cup Threatens Productivity the Most

Source: Statista

While football fans around the world are looking forward to the FIFA World Cup bringing them a month of excitement, employers are not quite as thrilled about their workers being distracted by the daily dose of World Cup drama.

64 matches crammed into roughly four weeks offer plenty of room for distraction, especially when several of these matches kick off during regular working hours. And while casual fans may be content with watching the odd game here and there, hardcore World Cup enthusiasts have the ambition to watch any match, regardless if the teams are Brazil and Germany or Tunisia and Panama.

How large the potential effect of the FIFA World Cup on productivity at the workplace is, depends largely on the time zone. While bosses in large parts of Asia and Australia can relax because of the games starting at night, Brazilian employees should probably cut their workers some slack over the next few weeks: because of the time difference more than 60 hours of World Cup action will be played during regular working hours in Rio.

World Cup Infographic

Goldman Sachs Report – This Is Who Will Win The World Cup

Goldman SachsGoldman Sachs Research have published the sixth edition of their book “World Cup and Economics” which includes “economic insight, tenuous correlations and footballing views” for public use “as a guide and companion through the upcoming competition.”

They make some bold claims after crunching 200,000 probability trees and 1 million simulations, specifically:

“England meets Germany in the quarters, where Germany wins; and Germany meets Brazil in the final, and Brazil prevails.”

The full report can be found here, in the interim there is this brief video: