It's just not cricket: Aussie workers' $371m online bludge

Stuart Corner
Monday, 12 March 2007 12:04

Your IT - Home IT

Internet management company, Marshal, estimates that Internet and mobile related information on the eight week long World Cup Cricket series will see Australian workers collectively spend $371 million worth of their work time tracking the game via their PCs or cell phones.

According to Marshal, "Cricket fans are gearing up for 51 games of international test cricket that will be played over 39 days, including 27 working days. And this year, with expanded live coverage of the games on the Web, fans will find it easier to watch more hours than ever before. All of which is bad news for employers, where the rise of interest will have the opposite effect on productivity during the competition.

Marshal argues that, for most cricket buffs that hold desk-bound jobs, workplace Internet access will be the most popular means of staying across the latest results and cricket-related entertainment on offer. "This is set to cause a significant drop in productivity as employees check the Net during working hours for details on matches played in the West Indies the previous evening. It will also compromise IT service as they download videos and interactive scoreboards, eating up valuable bandwidth."

To arrive at the $371 million figure, Marshal, according to its press release assumed that one in 10 of Australia's 10 million employed people with an average hourly wage of $27.30 an hour spend 30 minutes a day catching up on the World Cup for the 27 working days that tournament is played. If that were the case the results would be more than 13.5 million hours of lost productivity.