March goes in like a lion and out like a lamb, they say. As for March Madness, many employers would like it to just go out. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament could cost them up to $1.2 billion in lost productivity, according to a survey by Challenger, Grey & Christmas. The Chicago consulting firm estimates that workers will spend an average of 13.5 minutes on college basketball Web sites over the three-week tournament, which ends on Tuesday.

I have no idea how the firm came up with that number, but I imagine that the workers stealing the boss’ times will be mostly of the male persuasion. Women generally don’t do professional sports with that passion. And many male sport fans regard March Madness more as a gambling opportunity than an athletic event demanding their all.

No doubt there are women sneaking off to long lunches at the sports bar because they want to see the game, but I don’t know of one. The fanatics may be shocked to learn that many women don’t know what sport March Madness refers to – or that it refers to a sport and not a sale at the mall.

In the meantime, Pontiac is up to its rearview in sponsorship of the tournament. Its advertising manager has noted that the audience will be overwhelmingly male until the Final Four, when many women in mixed-gender households have little choice but to look at the jumping players and wonder what the fuss is about. Or they could go to another room.

“The men are watching it, but what are the women doing?” a male friend opined. “They’re making the nachos.”

Fat chance, I told him.

Now, there also happens to be a March Madness for women’s college basketball, which is no minor matter – even though the women’s coaches are paid a quarter of what the men’s coaches make. Pontiac also is sponsoring the women’s games, bless them.

Vegas bookmakers brightly observe that betting on the women’s games is at an all-time high. This year, the number could approach $7 million. But before anyone harbors the delusion of equality in interest, do note that a thousand-times more – $7 billion – will be wagered on the men’s games.

The really interesting thing is that the audience watching women’s college basketball also will be mostly men. Nielsen Media Research found that men made up 62 percent of the adult viewers for last year’s final women’s championship game – which was not all that different from the 64 percent male audience for the men’s final game. In Los Angeles, 90 percent of the audience watching the women’s game was male. More women than men watched last year’s women’s game in only one major market – Dallas, where the audience was 59 percent female.

What’s going on here?

“Men watch women’s basketball because they’ve reached a level of proficiency which is about where men were 20 years ago,” Nacho Man told me. Ordinary males can more easily envision themselves playing in the women’s game, which tends to be lower and slower, with more shots missing the basket.

“The women play a more team-oriented game,” he adds. Don’t they always?

Now that employees’ computers can get video, the possibilities for avoiding honest labor has greatly increased. And CBS SportsLine has about doubled its capacity for streaming the tournament coverage into America’s cubicles.

Add time spent on the actual games, the online games and office-pool betting – and throw in a few spring-like days in America’s Northern tier – and the gross domestic product could well suffer a fraction. Whatever; April’s on its way.