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.
For detail on the all-popular, all-powerful NFL, which groups most of its games on Sunday afternoons, see our NFL Forecast.
Download a full-size copy here.
Monday: Take a rest. Things are about to get super sportsy this week. In fact, if you want to, skip the Monday Night Football game. Nine times out of ten, the Cardinals are going to kill the Ravens.
Tuesday: Here’s where it starts to get real. The NBA season opens with a double-header and the World Series (that’s baseball) gets started with the first game of a best-out-of-seven series between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets.
Wednesday: The World Series, unlike the NBA or NHL finals, doesn’t always take a day off between games. Game Two comes tonight right on the heels of yesterday’s Game One. Over in soccer universe, the Major League Soccer playoffs get started with two single-elimination knockout games. They’ll be worth watching if you don’t have a stake or interest in the World Series.
Thursday: The World Series wisely takes a night off to make room for the NFL. Nothing in today’s sporting landscape can go up against the NFL and not look bad, at least in terms of ratings. Major League Soccer apparently just doesn’t care, they’re playing two more knockout playoff games.
Friday: Date night! If you’re hanging around in the afternoon, stomach full of butterflies, settle yourself by watching some good horse racing or some even better rugby. Then enjoy Game Three of the World Series on the date!
Saturday: It’s another week of uninspiring college football matchups. There’s only one game with two top twenty five ranked teams playing each other, and that’s Notre Dame vs. Temple. Luckily, the British have us covered. Start your day with a great soccer game between Chelsea and Liverpool at 8:45 a.m. and then switch over to the Rugby World Cup finals (hosted by England this year) between Australia and New Zealand. Seriously — don’t miss the rugby. It’s going to be awesome.
Sunday: There’s soccer and football and baseball on all day. It’s a sports fan’s aspirational Sunday.
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.