World Cup Fever Grips the Globe

June 23, 2010 -- Does it sound like a swarm of hornets have descended on your co-worker's office?

Are you periodically hearing shouts and cheers of delight and frustration from your otherwise quiet neighbors?

Do your friends suspiciously sneak away from work for a few hours at a time and return with a bit of a buzz?

Do not be alarmed -- it's just World Cup fever, a bug that has swept the planet faster and stronger than swine flu and could have an impact on global productivity. (And that hornet sound is just the vuvuzelas, the love 'em or hate 'em horns that the South African soccer fans blow throughout the World Cup matches.)

Two weeks into the month-long tournament it's clear that while Americans boast of a World Series and a Super Bowl, there is nothing that compares to the magnitude of the World Cup for global interest and fan fervor.

A simple request via Twitter, Facebook and e-mail for anecdotes from around the world about how people are watching World Cup games touched off a flood of responses including many creative viewing habits.

Many soccer fans are simply saying "Adios" to work and leaving the office to catch their team's matches. Those who cannot sneak away during work hours are turning to ESPN3.com for live streaming video of the World Cup or logging onto Internet radio.

Cell phones, iPhones, Blackberries -- soccer fans said they are employing them all to catch the games while not risking losing a job.

The BBC reported today that Internet traffic in the United Kingdom rose by almost a third during England's critical game against Slovenia as soccer fans tuned into the network's live online stream.

An executive from ESPN, which is broadcasting the games on television and online, joked to the Wall Street Journal earlier this month about the company's expectations for online World Cup viewing.

"The intention is to affect the overall work productivity of the North American continent," joked ESPN Executive Vice President John Skipper. "I'm not positive that we'll see it on the news that we brought down corporations' Internet networks, but I'm willing to try."

It looks like ESPN may be getting its wish. Bars in downtown Washington, DC, were packed by game time today, with patrons lined up over an hour before the start to secure a place inside.

People in business suits mingled with fans in soccer jerseys at the standing room only watering holes. In the nation's capitol, a city known for its international population and transient sports fans that still root for their home teams, the World Cup brought fans together during working hours.

Frank Konczakowski, who works for a software and trade association and was proudly sporting a Team USA jersey said that he was "technically" working during the US-Algeria match.

"My boss is out on travel, so I will be checking my phone e-mail every now and then," he told ABC News.

At The Mighty Pint, Monica, who declined to give her last name or her employer, said that everyone at her workplace is watching the games, so supervisors try to assign work that "doesn't take a whole lot of focus."

Offices, Hospitals, Schools Succumb to World Cup Fever

"We slipped away. We work right around the corner, actually, so, it's not -- we're allowed to step out whenever we want. We're not on a very strict clock," she told ABC News.

William, who works with Monica and also declined to give his last name, said something that was echoed by many Twitterers worldwide -- their job is not based on "punching a clock," but rather on their productivity.

"We organize our lives to reflect what we want to do, so it's easier for us to scoot away and take care of a game or two," he told ABC News.

Both said they have Blackberries and are reachable in case something pops up at work.

"It's not like we're monitoring an oil spill or anything," William said.

Doctors and hospital staff gathered in break rooms to catch a few minutes of soccer and one nurse even said one of her charges invited her back to the patient's room to watch a game together. "Rude to say no," she said via Twitter.

A middle school teacher at a public school outside Boston said that World Cup fever consumed his students as the temperatures got warmer and their thoughts turned to summer break.

"It being the last week of school, we ended up with a lot of loose time and I put the games up on the smartboard in my room via ESPN3. The picture was amazing and I have overhead sound in my classroom, so the vuvuzela's infected the 8th grade hallway," said this teacher. "As I attempted to complete just a few more lessons, the kids whined for the football action after they became aware of how easy it was for us to watch it. At the same time, at a time of year where we are just trying to hold it together, being able to turn on the matches as a source of entertainment came in quite handy."

One of his students recently moved to the Boston suburbs from Cameroon and he gave his new classmates a reason to root for the African nation's squad.

His teacher said that he was "heartbroken" in art class after watching his team narrowly miss a goal to tie up Cameroon's opening game against Japan.

"The kids were all rooting for Cameroon and certainly caught the fever as they helped their friend work through his disappointment," he said.

If interest seems high in the United States, it is stratospheric elsewhere in the world.

In Mexico City, it seems like all 18 million people are tuned into the World Cup. The Zocola, public square in the center of the city, was packed with soccer fans during Mexico's opening match against South Africa and has been transformed into a World Cup viewing site with giant screens broadcasting games around the clock.

One American working in Mexico said that meetings with government officials there are scheduled around the games -- "and then you have to spend the first 15 minutes of all other meetings discussing the game," she said.

Aaron Stoertz, an intern at the World Health Organization in Geneva this summer, said that if you stand on a street in this international hub for one minute, you will know immediately what countries are playing at that time.

"You'll inevitably see a whole host of pedestrians draped in flags, cars honking by with flags draped from windows or bars that seem to transform their storefront nationality by the hour with complete costume changes for each game," Stoertz said. "No matter who wins, Geneva celebrates a victory with nationals. I have yet to watch a game where everyone is cheering for the same side, even in the North Korea matches."

Billions In Productivity Lost to Workers Watching The World Cup?

Soccer-mad Brits are crowding into pubs and dropping everything to watch their national team, which moved on to the Round of 16 despite a less than stellar performance in its first three matches.

A British legal firm in London that employs lawyers from around the world and is normally strict about employee Internet use is allowing its staff to watch live streaming video of World Cup matches via the BBC.

Even in countries that do not have a team in the World Cup, soccer fans and casual observers are hooked on the month-long tournament.

Cricket may be the obsessive national pastime in India, but the World Cup has earned fans. Karen Leigh, an American journalist working in Delhi, said that when asked what team they are pulling for, most Indians answer with "Um, England?"

Japan, South Korea and North Korea all qualified for this year's World Cup, but China is tuning in as well. Beijing bars have set up outdoor screens and viewing areas have been set up in parks, with foreigners staying up very late to catch their teams.

Lebanon may not have a team in the World Cup, but that has not stopped a rabid following of the rest of the tournament field. An American graduate student working in Beirut reports that Brazil seems to be the fan favorite of the Lebanese, followed by Germany, based on a survey of flags and trinkets that have been spotted around the capital.

Is There a Measurement for World Cup Lost Productivity?

While anecdotal evidence indicates that the eyes of the world are focused on the soccer games in South Africa, there is no conclusive study that estimates how much money and time the World Cup costs the global community.

One Swiss researcher estimated that if half of a country's workforce slacks off in order to watch their team play in the World Cup, the tournament will cost the global economy about $10.4 billion in lost productivity -- and that is just in the first two weeks.

Willem Smit, a researcher at Switzerland's Institute for Management Development, looked at a nation's GDP per hour of work and looked at the number of hours that would be lost due to World Cup viewing. He estimated that Mexico and Germany will lose up to $1.7 billion in productivity and Brazil would lose up to $1.2 billion.

"When we look at these numbers and consider the fact that most countries competing in the World Cup are still suffering from the effects of the current global recession, some more than others -- Spain and Portugal -- it seems untimely to even consider allowing employees to watch matches during working hours," said.

Smit's colleague Karsten Jonsen disagrees and thinks that by bringing people together to watch games at work, companies may benefit from an increase in "team spirit," which is certainly difficult to quantify.

"Those companies that provide the opportunity to watch the World Cup during working hours will potentially benefit from their employees feeling closer to each other and to the organization," Jonsen said. "Importantly, many of today's knowledge workers work in a 'results-only work environment,' whereby they are paid for results rather than the number of hours they work. Thus, as long as they produce the bottom line results, they can easily adjust their schedules in order to watch World Cup games with their work colleagues."

Serena Williams and Other Pros Bitten By World Cup Bug

At Washington's The Mighty Pint, one patron supported that concept.

"I think employers should be somewhat understanding of the fact that this is sort of something that garners national pride, and it can really bring the country together when there are so many things going on in the world," she said. "As corny as that might sound, I think it's important."

Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a consultant group based in Chicago, ranked the World Cup fourth on its unscientific list of "Top Productivity-sapping Sports Events?" -- March Madness is first on the list.

There is even a World Cup Twitter bounce -- when a goal is scored, there is a spike in activity on the social networking site.

The AP reported that normally Twitter sees about 750 tweets per second, but that shot up to nearly 3,000 tweets per second when countries like Japan and Brazil scored goals. There have been numerous Twitter outages over the last two weeks, which have been attributed to the higher than usual traffic during World Cup matches.

A college basketball player on a top-ranked team Tweeted from a summer school class and asked if it was wrong that he was watching the US-Algeria game. Later he noted that everyone else in his class had the game on their laptops, so it must be okay.

Even tennis star Serena Williams caught World Cup fever and filed a Twitter post on Wednesday morning that she was watching the US-Algeria game online.

When the American Landon Donovan scored the pivotal game winning goal in the final minutes of Wednesday's game against Algeria, Twitter froze for about a minute, undoubtedly a result of the masses turning to the social media tool.

Here is a sampling of Twitter posts from other top athletes watching Wednesday's game.

From soccer star Brandi Chastain (@brandichastain), whose penalty kick won the 1999 Women's World Cup for the U.S.: "Laughing and jumping thru the roof with tears streaming down my face. USA I LOVE YOU"

From Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco (@OGOchoCinco): "Gggggggggggggooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll #uuuuuuuuuuuuusssssssaaaaaa, ole ole ole ole clap clap clap"

But it's this Twitter post, from U.S. Soccer Team starting forward Jozy Altidore, that sums up the thoughts of viewers around the globe watching the tournament over these four weeks: "WOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!"

ABC News' Julie Percha and Clarissa Ward contributed to this report.