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: The big ticket event of the day is the national championship game in college football. There’s a big portion of the sports watching population that’s more into college than professional football, and for them, this is a big day.
Tuesday: Soccer in the morning and basketball in the evening. It’s not a bad way to go, which is good, because if you wanted to, you could spend four days this week so occupied. If it’s a close game, the best of the day will be the basketball game between the number one ranked Kansas Jayhawks and the West Virginia Mountaineers.
Wednesday: Liverpool vs. Arsenal is a heck of a mid-week soccer game. If you can find a way to sneak out of work at 3 p.m., do so, you won’t be sorry. In the evening, you can take your choice of a college basketball game involving the likely number one pick in this year’s NBA draft and an NBA game featuring a bunch of players who were high picks themselves.
Thursday: If I had my pick of the games today, I think I’d watch the hockey game between the current dynasty in the NHL, the Chicago Blackhawks, and the most storied team in hockey history, the Montreal Canadians. There’s a not dissimilar game in the NBA as well, the dynastic San Antonio Spurs against the team with the consensus best player in the world, the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Friday: Date night! There’s nothing you can’t miss today. Go out!
Saturday: The second weekend of the NFL playoffs is even more compelling than the first and in many ways, it’s better than the next two as well. The four best teams in the league this season face the winners of last weekend’s playoff games after having a week off. Don’t mess around this weekend, if you’re gonna watch sports, watch the football.
Sunday: The same goes for today, if you’re going to watch sports, watch football! If you’re going to watch other sports, there are definitely some good options, including men’s and women’s college basketball, British soccer, and NHL hockey.
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.