By Cody Marshall-Sultan of Sports

Every year, the NCAA Tournament creates a great reason for office workers to try to win money through office pools. The first two days of the tournament are often the days when workers will call in “sick” in order to watch the games. Otherwise, they’ll simply stay out longer on their lunch break to watch as much of the games as they can. Some businesses are even allowing this to happen to help build camraderie.

Is this ethical though? Some of the stats show that 86% of employees plan to devote at least some work to tournament games. In addition, $175 million is paid to unproductive workers during the first two days of the tournament. Helping the cause is the fact that 55% of Human Resource professionals say that office pools have a positive effect on morale. Part of the reason workers are able to get away with it is that only 42% of IT professionals monitor employees trying to access tournament video streams. The numbers don’t lie either. The NCAA Tournament is the second-most popular sporting event in the United States, behind only the Super Bowl (which some people think should be a national holiday).

Personally, I love the workers thinking. Being an avid sports fan, I’d love to be able to make money watching the tournament, or just watch the tournament with friends. For those of you who don’t agree with this, you might want to criticize the man in Washington while you’re at it. President Barack Obama took time from work to attend the Western Kentucky/Mississippi Valley State game in Dayton, Ohio. Based on the interview he had with Clark Kellogg, I almost thought Obama had a future as an analyst. That was until he said that Western Kentucky’s and Mississippi Valley State’s lackluster 21-19 halftime score was due to, “these are teams that haven’t been here often.” I really hate to bust on him, but this year was Western Kentucky’s 22nd appearance in the tournament (someone didn’t do their homework).

Regardless, the NCAA Tournament is a national phenomenon. We always look forward to Selection Sunday and then we are eager to lay a 5 dollar bill down to get our brackets filled out in what we think is a winning strategy. Sports in the United States is something that will never dwindle due to the economy. To be honest, since Washington can’t quite figure out a way to turn things around, why not lean on college students playing basketball to help money flow a little more.