When there’s a major sports event coming up, business reporters can count on getting a news release  from Challenger Gray & Christmas. The usual refrain is that the big game costs employers money because workers spend so much time gossiping about it.

This week, the Chicago outplacement firm turned its calculators loose on Super Bowl XLI. It says employers will lose $810 million worth of productivity next week because us lousy, time-wasting workers will be so focused on the Bears and the Colts. Here’s Challenger’s math:

• 93 million people are expected to watch the game on TV.
• 63 percent of them are employed.
• The average U.S. wage is $17.05 an hour, or $2.84 every 10 minutes.
• Each worker/fan will spend 10 minutes each day, Monday through Friday,    ”chatting about the game or surfing the Internet to compare starting line-ups.”

If you believe Challenger’s overhyped calculations, this Super Bowl is a little more costly than last year’s but it’s a piker compared with March Madness.   But, as I’ve said before, these estimates are based on some crazy assumptions. Sure, I know some co-workers who will exchange a few pleasantries about the game. But 10 minutes a day, every day for a week? The number of workers who are into football that deeply has to fall well short of 63 million.

At a more fundamental level, such time-wasting calculations misrepresent the nature of the typical work environment.  Social interaction with  co-workers is part of building a cohesive workplace. If we’re not talking about the big football game, we might be talking about the weather or a kid’s report card.    Banning such interaction would hurt morale without adding anything to profits. So why try to portray it as a “cost” to the business?