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 full coverage of all the NHL and NBA games, see our NHL forecast and NBA forecast.
Download a full-size copy here.
Monday: As is the trend this week, the majority of our sports action today is in college basketball, both men’s and women’s. Two minor men’s conference championship games and two major women’s championship games lead the way.
Tuesday: Sticking its nose into the college basketball party is Champions League soccer. Real Madrid come into their game against Roma knowing that the only thing that can eliminate them is a loss by two or more goals. This could lead to a boring, defensive game from some teams, but Real Madrid seems constitutionally unable to resist putting on a show. Back at home, there are a few more college basketball championship games, including the women’s Big East finals.
Wednesday: The two Champions League matches on TV today are less star-studded than yesterday’s but significantly closer. Chelsea hosts PSG knowing that a 1-0 win is enough to advance. A similar situation holds in Russia for the Zenit vs. Benfica match where Benfica holds a 1-0 aggregate lead. Of more interest, perhaps, to many American soccer fans is a friendly match between the U.S. women’s national team and Germany in the SheBelieves Cup. This is a rematch of the 2015 World Cup semifinals which the U.S. won 2-0.
Thursday: The Europa League doesn’t have the cache of the Champions League but when giant English teams like Liverpool and Manchester United are involved, it still feels like a big deal. Closer to home, the Los Angeles Lakers don’t have any cache anymore, which is why I’ve been holding their games off the sports calendar for most of the year. But you know what? The week after they became only the sixth team all season to beat the Golden State Warriors, they deserve to be here.
Friday: Date night! Are you in a college basketball relationship? If so, you’re in luck. If not, maybe bank some good favor and have a non-sports related date tonight. March Madness is coming soon…
Saturday: There are a flurry of men’s college basketball conference championships today. All of them are worth watching but counter-intuitively, it’s sometimes the ones from the smaller leagues that are the most fun. Leagues that only get one or two spots in the overall NCAA tournament, really raise the stakes of their championship games.
Sunday: Sunday is always a great sporting day, but it does feel a little like we’re just killing time here, waiting for the next big thing to start happening.
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.