This blog entry comes in anticipation of today’s Digital Firefly Marketing fantasy football draft.

When it comes to work, there are a ton of distractions that can get in the way of your routine. Whether it’s checking Facebook, Twitter or walking across the office to the bathroom. These distractions can take up a good chunk of your work day. One distraction, however, dominates the office in the fall. That distraction is fantasy football. One firm estimates that it costs American employers as much as $13.4 billion a year.

Billions of Dollars?!

That’s right. Fantasy football costs American businesses $13.4 BILLION annually; keeping in mind that a typical fantasy football season only lasts 15 weeks! Who knew that checking Randall Cobb’s status for week 4 could be so costly?

The study was conducted by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the same firm who in 2012, predicted that fantasy football was costing American companies about $6.5 a year. This means the popularity of fantasy football has more than doubled in just two years.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas stated that it “fully acknowledges the absurdity” of putting a dollar amount on the lack of productivity caused by fantasy football, and admitted that it’s “not trying to demonize fantasy football”. In an interview with The Chicago Tribune, CEO John A. Challenger said “It is important to understand that there are more distractions than ever in today’s workplace. If it’s not fantasy football, it’s the latest Hollywood gossip, shopping on Amazon, or checking Facebook.”

The funniest part of this estimate is that it’s on the low-side. For this study, Challenger, Gray & Christmas assumed that employment rate of the 31 million working-age Americans who take part in fantasy football is 59%, and they spend about two hours a week researching their players while working. Anyone who drafted Ray Rice last year spent twice that amount of time just scanning the waiver wire for another running back.

Fortunately, CGC doesn’t think that employers should ban fantasy football from the office anytime soon. Challenger said, “An across-the-board ban on all fantasy football or sports websites is likely to backfire and cause a drop in morale, loyalty and, ironically, productivity. The end result could be far worse than any loss of productivity caused by an hour or two of team management each week.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some late-round sleepers to look at.