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. You can also get daily updates from our NHL forecast and NBA forecast.
Download a full-size copy here.
Monday: It’s a big day for Boston. Their beloved Patriots play against the Buffalo Bills with their undefeated season on the line. Meanwhile, Celtics fans will be watching the college basketball game between Marquette and LSU and drooling over the thought of adding LSU’s Ben Simmons to their squad next year.
Tuesday: Good double-headers in soccer and basketball. Our soccer fare involves some three very well-known teams — Roma and Barcelona, who play each other, and Arsenal who play a less internationally known team from Croatia, Dinamo Zagreb. Later on, the Atlanta Hawks play the Boston Celtics followed by the Golden State Warriors beating the Los Angeles Lakers by 45 points.
Wednesday: Over in Europe, the Champions League returns and the games to watch both involve teams from Manchester. Man United plays against the Dutch team, PSV Eindhoven while Man City faces the Italian powerhouse, Juventus. Back in the United States, we’ve got some women’s college volleyball and a doozy of an NHL hockey game.
Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving! As you probably know, Thanksgiving is all about family. And food. AND FOOTBALL. Enjoy the day, however you choose to celebrate!
Friday: Two sports are trying to get in on the fun of the day-after-Thanksgiving: college football and hockey. If you want to spend all day watching these two sports instead of shopping frantically, you can! Start with Navy vs. Houston at noon, switch over to hockey with the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers at 1 p.m. on NBC. Stay there for at least the start of the Chicago Blackhawks vs. Anaheim Ducks, and then complete the sandwich by switching back to college football with TCU vs. Baylor. Also, have some left over turkey.
Saturday: Someone decided to put all the best college football rivalries on a single day and today is the day. Ohio State vs. Michigan, USC vs. UCLA, Florida vs. Florida State, Stanford vs. Notre Dame, and Oklahoma State vs. Oklahoma are all great college football games. It’s almost too much of a good thing.
Sunday: Talking about too much of a good thing, that’s what you get when you add two Major League Soccer semifinal games and the Canadian Football League’s championship game to the normal Sunday NFL games. Sheesh!
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.