It’s that time of the year. Classrooms are emptier than usual. Students hide behind their laptops in the back of the room hoping the instructor doesn’t notice. Everyone reads about the Cinderella team and hopes it doesn’t mess up the bracket. Brackets have been filled out for everything from basketball to Southern towns, and most people have only one thing on their mind: March Madness.
    Even if you’re not a sports fan, you’ve probably at least heard of March Madness. It’s the NCAA basketball tournament that happens every year in March. Sixty-eight teams are chosen for the tournament and are eliminated by losses until one team wins the final game.  March Madness is also considered a gambling event, as a great number of people fill out brackets in hopes that they’ll win money. This year, Warren Buffet offers $1 billion to anyone who fills out a perfect bracket.
  However, many companies and professors feel that with March Madness comes a loss of productivity. Students and workers alike stream the games from the laptops and cell phones while in class or at work. They check scores, and they’ve downloaded the new app. In fact, with the start of March Madness every year, newspapers and stations run stories of decreased productivity in the workplace.
    One global outplacement firm —Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc. — estimates that 50 million Americans have filled out office pool brackets and will be watching the games. College students are no different. We’ve filled out brackets and watched the games when we should be paying attention in class, and we’ve all cringed as Duke ruined our brackets. But does March Madness pose an actual threat to the productivity of workers and students? Not so much.
   Studies show that students and workers alike find a way to get their work done, even while watching the tournament. Streaming videos and obsessing over brackets may anger bosses and professors, but ultimately does not affect the overall productivity of workers and students. The people who take time out of the day to stream a game are the same people who answer emails and work on projects all hours of the night.
 Some companies embrace March Madness. Dish Network offers “bracket breaks” to its employees during the tournament. Other companies have decided to be flexible and allow workers to watch while at work or even offer benefits that give off days to workers. These companies realize that by embracing March Madness, they ensure that they lessen the threat of losing money due to lack of productivity.
   Sure, as students we should be in class paying attention to the lecture — especially since we’re supposed to be preparing ourselves for the real world. But as college students, we can’t help our obsession over college sports. The lack of attendance and attentiveness due to March Madness is comparable to the decrease of productivity on college football weekends. Many students put off homework and studying until Sunday night on football weekends, just as they’re putting off homework and studying until a day’s games are over now. And no, students shouldn’t be as invested in their brackets as they are, but it’s human nature to want to win.
    Even though the annual tournament annoys employers and professors every year, it doesn’t actually affect the overall productivity of the workers or students. Sure, March Madness causes us to mix professional life with personal life, but that happens every day in many different ways. It’s not a real issue.