A newly released UKG absenteeism survey shows Super Bowl 2025 is expected to break the previous record of 18.8 million who said they would miss work in 2023 — a game that also featured the Philadelphia Eagles vs. the Kansas City Chiefs.

An estimated 22.6 million employed Americans plan to miss work the day after Super Bowl LIX — up from 16.1 million last year.

Additionally, the workforce management technology company found that 12.9 million U.S. employees say they’ll go into work late on Monday after the big game.

Almost 43 percent of employed Americans believe the Monday after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday, up from 37 percent in 2024.

The survey found that millions of employed Americans have a game plan for Monday: from the trick plays — such as calling in sick even if they’re not actually sick (about 3.2 million) and “ghosting” their employer by skipping work without telling anyone (another 3.2 million) — to taking a pre-approved day off (12.9 million) or swapping shifts with a co-worker so they don’t have to work on Monday (4.8 million).

This is all according to new research conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of UKG, which has tracked the big game’s impacts on employee absenteeism, presenteeism and productivity for two decades.

“We launched this research years ago to start a conversation to help organizations prepare for unplanned absences — people playing hooky or ghosting work altogether — because of the Super Bowl and other pop-culture events that impact work,” said Julie Develin, senior partner of HCM advisory at UKG, which is a leading global provider of HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions. “Although a record number of employees plan to miss work on Monday, we continue to see forward progress with managers and employees having more open conversations about taking the day off, swapping shifts, or making arrangements to come in late so that the business is covered.”

Despite the record number of absenteeism expected this year, the UKG survey shows increased transparency among employees, people managers and organizations:

• 68 percent of U.S. employees say they talk to their manager before they submit their time-off requests (vs. 62 percent in 2024).
• 58 percent of managers who plan to watch the big game this year say they planned to ask their employees directly about their time-off plans for the Super Bowl (vs. 51 percent in 2024).
• 55 percent of U.S. employees say they feel comfortable asking their manager for time off the Monday after the Super Bowl (vs. 50 percent in 2023).

A similar portion of U.S. employees also plan to take a pre-approved day off this year, compared with the past two years (8 percent in 2025 vs. 6 percent in 2024 vs. 7 percent in 2023), and 3 percent of employees plan to swap their Monday shift with someone else.

Only a small percentage of employees plan to play hooky and call in sick even though they aren’t really sick (2 percent) or ghost their employer (2 percent) on Monday.

Besides the millions of U.S. employees who plan to miss work on Monday — and the additional estimated 8 million who say they’ll make a game-time decision about what to do — many millions more, including managers, may take a hit on workplace productivity, UKG said.

An estimated 17.7 million10 U.S. employees say they will be working on Super Bowl Sunday, but they still plan to watch at least some of the game. This includes more than 1 in 10 (13 percent) managers working on Sunday.

Of the employed Americans who plan to watch the Super Bowl this year, 4 in 10 (40 percent) say they’ll be distracted by Super Bowl media coverage when they work the Monday after the game — a significant increase from last year’s 28 percent.

Nearly half (49 percent) of all people managers who plan to watch the Super Bowl say they’ll be distracted on Monday, too.

Over a third (36 percent) of U.S. employees who plan to watch the Super Bowl this year say they’ll be less productive than they normally are at work on Monday after the Super Bowl — up from 30 percent in 2024.

Meanwhile, 43 percent of employed Americans think the Monday after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday — up from 37 percent who said so in 2024 — and more than half (56 percent) who plan to watch the Super Bowl wish their organization gave them the day off on Monday after the big game.

About 8 million U.S. employees this year also plan to leverage flexibility options at their workplaces and work remotely from home the day after the Super Bowl, even though they’d usually work at a physical workplace on Monday.