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.
This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast. Same deal, for the most part, with NFL football games. For those, see our NFL Forecast.
Download a full-size copy here.
Monday: Columbus Day may be of dubious value as a historic holiday but it’s of intense value as a sports holiday. Sit back and enjoy four playoff baseball games, a good European Championship qualifying soccer game, an interesting Monday Night Football game, and a handful of NHL games that couldn’t even break into our calendar.
Tuesday: The Netherlands are a proud soccer country with a long history of top-level competition but they’re struggling just to qualify for next year’s European Championships. They need a win in today’s game against the Czech Republic. Two more MLB playoff games and a modern-classic NHL matchup round out today’s sports.
Wednesday: The WNBA finals come to a conclusion today with a winner-take all fifth game between the Minnesota Lynx and Indiana Fever. That might be enough to steer at least one of your eyes away from playoff baseball or early season hockey.
Thursday: The divisional round of the baseball playoffs will come to an end today, unless all the series are over by now… it’s impossible to know on Monday morning when I’m writing this. If they are still happening, they’ll be happening in an exciting crescendo. The normal Thursday Night NFL game is a good one this week and it’s joined by a north/south California rivalry college football game: UCLA vs. Stanford.
Friday: Date night! The American League Championship Series (semifinals to the World Series) begins today and may sway you from your appointed date. Other than that, although the calendar looks full, I don’t think high school football (even though it’s a historic rivalry in Washington DC!!) or boxing is going to be much of a problem for negotiating some couple’s time.
Saturday: Two classic college football rivalries: Michigan vs. Michigan State and Florida vs. LSU highlight today’s college football games. In baseball, the National League Championship series will begin and the AL one will move to its second game. In soccer, the British Premier League returns to action after a few weeks off for international soccer.
Sunday: The NFL eclipses everything else on most Sundays during the fall. That’s true today, especially at night when the New England Patriots try to exact Deflategate related revenge on the Indianapolis Colts. Wedged into the sports schedule are some other compelling events: women’s college soccer, MLS soccer, a NASCAR race, the second game of the NLCS, and the second weekend of the NWHL’s existence!
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.