Challenger estimates workers spend 30 minutes during otherwise productive time – meaning outside breaks or the lunch hour – every work day checking their players, proposing trades, and researching the league. For its estimate, Challenger used the Nielsen finding that 12.5 million adults play Fantasy Football.
Applying the current employment-population ratio of 60.7, according to seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 7,587,500 of these Fantasy Football players are employed. With an average hourly wage of $27.98 in July, according to the BLS, employers lose $212.3 million for every hour of work time players spend on Fantasy Football.
If players spend 2.5 hours on Fantasy Football each week over the 17 weeks of the pre- and regular seasons, the cumulative loss totals $9,022,675,625.
