Upwards of 800,000 of people may have signed a petition calling on HBO to remake Game of Thrones’ final season, but this Sunday’s series finale is still expect to draw massive ratings. And of the millions of people who do tune in, many will find themselves distracted at work the following Monday morning. That’s if — they even bother to show up.
A new study conducted by the Workforce Institute at Kronos predicts that 27.2 million GOT live viewers “will either miss work completely the next day, or arrive late, work remotely, be less productive than usual, or suffer some other impact on their work obligations come Monday.” Of that total, an estimated 10.7 million Americans are expected to skip work entirely on Monday.
Overall, Kronos concluded that 35.8 million viewers have spent at least one hour of work each week talking about, reading about, or posting about rogue coffee cups since season 8’s premiere on April 14th. This loss of productivity has already cost employers an estimated $3.3 billion in revenue — a number that will only grow come Monday.
Of course, we’ll be here on Monday with a full coverage of the finale. Apologies in advance to all the bosses out there.