If you are a sports fan or if you live with a sports fan then your weekly schedule becomes inextricably linked with what sporting events are on at what times during each week. The conflict between missing a sporting event for a poorly committed to social event and missing an appealing social event to watch a game is an important balancing act in any kind of romantic, familial, or business relationship between a sports fan and a non-sports fan. To help facilitate this complicated advanced mathematics, Dear Sports Fan has put together a table showing the most important sporting events of the upcoming week. Print it out, put it on your fridge, and go through it with your scheduling partner.
Download a full-size copy here.
Monday: Free day! Oh sure, Uzbekistan is playing against Honduras at noon in the Under-20 Men’s World Cup, but… if you want to go see Mad Max or boycott Pitch Perfect 2, you should have time for that.
Tuesday: The French Open quarterfinals begin although the really titanic match-ups are more likely to happen on Wednesday.
Wednesday: If all goes as expected in the bracket and the weather, we should get a premature Djokovic vs. Nadal match in the French Open. Plus, the Stanley Cup finals begin in Tampa Bay. Nothing better than June hockey in Florida. All jokes aside, there really isn’t anything better than the Stanley Cup Finals.
Thursday: The French Open continues in the morning with the women’s semifinals. At night, after more than a week off, the NBA finals begin with LeBron and the other guys on the Cleveland Cavaliers in California to play the Golden State Warriors.
Friday: Date night! This week, the Sports Gods smile on your traditional date night by not scheduling anything too appealing on Friday night.
Saturday: For all the fanfare that that Saturday a month ago got for being a great sports Saturday, it’s hard to beat this one. Club soccer’s biggest tournament, the UEFA Champions League has its final, the Women’s World Cup begins with two games, one featuring host nation, Canada. Throw in the French Open Women’s finals and Game Two of the Stanley Cup Finals, and you’d have an amazing sports day even without the cherry on top. The cherry in this case is the running of the Belmont Stakes, a horse race whose profile goes through the roof on years when there’s a horse that’s won both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. This year, that horse is American Pharaoh, and if it can win the Belmont, it would become the first triple crown winner since 1978’s Affirmed.
Sunday: Roll out of bed and watch the French Open Men’s final, spend a happy afternoon watching the Women’s World Cup, and finish your day off with Game 2 of the NBA Finals.
Caveat — This forecast is optimized for the general sports fan, not a particular sports fan. As such, your mileage may vary. For instance, you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of a particular team, then a regular season MLB baseball game or MLS soccer game may be more important on a particular day than anything on the forecast above. Use the calendar as a way to facilitate conversation about scheduling, not as the last word on when there are sports to watch.