KEY POINTS:
Blame Bob Hawke. When Australia won the America's Cup off Rhode Island in 1983, he famously proclaimed that "any boss who sacks anyone for missing work today is a bum".
The notion has an obvious attraction, so much so that the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union has asked for employees to be cut a little slack during the World Cup.
National secretary Andrew Little says some workers will get caught up in the fervour, and either become sluggish at work or call in sick. Really? It is difficult to imagine even the most inveterate fan watching, let alone being excited by, most of the midweek matches. Canada taking on Japan, anyone?
Further, the vast majority of significant games will be played in the small hours of Saturday and Sunday, NZ time. Of the All Blacks' pool games, only that against Scotland offers the grim prospect of an interrupted night's sleep before work on Monday morning.
A few pool matches not involving New Zealand may warrant live viewing. South Africa against England is, perhaps, the most obvious. Happily, that will be played early on a Saturday morning, NZ time.
The scheduling of the World Cup quarter-finals and the semi-finals may demand a more accommodating attitude from employers. But that is the stuff of a couple of weary Monday mornings. It is nothing like the America's Cup, where a series of races involving Team New Zealand created compulsive overnight viewing.
This is a tournament of 48 games, of which only a small minority will interest the vast majority of rugby followers sufficiently to rouse them in the middle of the night. Sleepless nights are far more likely to be the product of another failed campaign than the thrill of watching Portugal play Italy.
