Fantasy football becoming workplace issue

This might be the peak of the season for those passionate souls who partake in fantasy football, but there’s evidence that employers are beginning to crack down on the craze. According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, 22 million Americans spend $800 million annually to pick real NFL athletes to complete their fantasy roster—and some really get into it, sifting through enough stats each day to rival a stock analyst. Needless to say, fantasy football has been known to seep into other aspects of life, such as work. Fidelity Investments in Westlake, Texas, fired four employees this fall for playing the game, according to reports by Fort Worth-area newspapers last week. The investment company instead cited its anti-gambling policy as a cause for their dismissals. One of those fired few, Cameron Pettigrew, the commissioner of his own fantasy football league, told the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram that he got a raw deal from America’s largest mutual fund sponsor. “They called me in and talked to me for about 90 minutes on everything I ever knew about fantasy football. They interrogated me as though I was some sort of international gambling kingpin,” Pettigrew told the newspaper. So, exactly how big of a problem is fantasy football for employers? Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a Chicago-based outplacement consulting firm, conducted a study last year that found employers lost an estimated $615 million per week in lost productivity due to fantasy football, despite gains in workplace morale and camaraderie.—Jeremy Alford