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: If you didn’t get enough soccer over the weekend, there’s one last British Premier League game. Just like the NFL, the BPL makes Monday a part of the weekend. This Monday’s game is Crystal Palace vs. Everton. Hard to root against a team called Crystal Palace! In the evening, before the NFL’s extension game, a woefully exciting NFC East matchup, watch a little bit of Indiana men’s college basketball and root for IUPUI, the best acronym in the game.
Tuesday: Take a trip to Germany for some UEFA Champions League soccer in the afternoon and then return to Indiana, (which has apparently become the official state of Dear Sports Fan,) for some NBA basketball. The Golden State Warriors will go for their 23rd win in a row — they haven’t lost yet this season! Seriously, any time you get a chance to watch Golden State this year — do it. They are amazing. Flip back and forth with an NHL game between two of the top teams in the league right now, the Detroit Red Wings and Washington Capitals.
Wednesday: Oh, sure, there’s more Champions League soccer in the afternoon, and that’s probably the best soccer in the world, but what I’m excited about is the hockey game. This may be my first experience of living in Boston when the Bruins are playing their age-old arch-enemies, the Montreal Canadiens. It’s like Sherlock vs. Moriarity with sticks.
Thursday: The United States Women’s National Soccer team was supposed to play an exhibition match against Trinidad and Tobago this past Sunday. They had to cancel it because the field conditions were so poor. Hopefully they’ll get things right this time and give these athletes a field they can safely play on. In the NFL, the Super Bowl aspiring Cardinals play a suddenly desperate Minnesota Vikings team that was blown out last weekend. It should be an interesting game.
Friday: Date night! Sports schedulers also know that, so Friday night tends to be when they put the less high profile sports. Sometimes those are the most fun to watch. Today’s slate has a great women’s basketball game and two college playoff games, one in Division 1-A football and one in women’s volleyball.
Saturday: It’s a sentimental day of sports with the traditional Army loss to Navy in football and a golf tournament that pairs fathers and sons in teams. I can’t wait to watch some of the father/son pairings argue about the best way to drive a golf cart.
Sunday: Another Sunday whose non-football sports can at least rival its football. In addition to the normal festival of football, you can watch three great soccer games: one from the British Premier League, one the NCAA men’s championship game, and another women’s international friendly. College basketball abounds. My suggestions are a women’s game between Stanford and Texas and a men’s game between Syracuse and St. John’s.
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.