Category: Sports Forecast

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.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday and Tuesday: Sorry — I was on vacation. No sports happened. (Okay, they did.)

Wednesday: The second half of the U.S. Open quarterfinals leads the way in the sports world today. The headlining matches are Roger Federer and Richard Gasquet around 8 p.m. and Simona Halep vs. Victoria Azarenka at 1:30 p.m. In the evening, get your last fix of soccer before the NFL season starts with the Portland Timbers vs. Sporting Kansas City. Both teams are “mid-table” which means in the middle of the standings of the Western Conference, so this will be a heated competition.

Thursday: Our long national nightmare is over. The NFL begins its 2015 season today with a heck of a game. The defending champion, New England Patriots, who have been at the center of the swirling Deflategate controversy over the past four months, host the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are a perennially good team with the potential to be a great one. With two accomplished quarterbacks and two of the league’s best receiving weapons in New England tight end Rob Gronkowski and Pittsburgh wide receiver Antonio Brown, this game should be high scoring and exciting. Alas, the NFL will probably overshadow the women’s semifinals at the U.S. Open. That’s a shame because Serena Williams is on what could be a historically great run.

Friday: Date night! If you feel like making it a sportsy outing, have a weissbier in the afternoon while you enjoy some German league soccer. In the evening, continue the international feel with the men’s semifinals of the U.S. Open. On one side, a Bosnian, Marin Cilic will face a Serb, Nocak Djokovic. Watch out! On the other side, the quarterfinals haven’t yet been decided, but we could have a match of two Swiss players or a French or South African player might crash the party.

Saturday: The day begins with a titanic matchup of British soccer teams: Manchester United and Liverpool are two of the best known and most followed soccer teams in the world. College football then takes the baton and dominates the rest of the day. The best game, at least by the numbers, is an evening game between two top-25 ranked teams: Oregon and Michigan State. Oregon is traditionally known for its offense and Michigan State for its defense. The women’s final of the U.S. Open will be must-watch TV if Serena Williams survives the semifinals to appear in it. She’ll be going for a “calendar Grand Slam” which means she will have won all four major tournaments in 2015. She’s already won the Australian, French, and Wimbledon. The U.S. Open is the last piece of the puzzle!

Sunday: Although it’s hard for most sports fans to think about anything but the first Sunday of the NFL season, there are a few other giant sports attractions today. The men’s final of the U.S. Open won’t approach the drama of the women’s final, but especially if Roger Federer is involved, it will also have a sentimental rooting interest. The NWSL playoffs begin with two games on Fox Sports 1: the Chicago Red Stars vs. FC Kansas City in the afternoon and Seattle Reign vs. Washington Spirit in the evening. As for the NFL, well, the best game in the 1 p.m. time slot is the Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers. The best game of the late afternoon slot is the Denver Broncos vs. Baltimore Ravens. But, you know, if you love football, just glory in the presence of so many games.

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.

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.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday: Uh… I thought the sports doldrums of the summer season were over, but here they come again, in waves of sports wilderness. With European soccer leagues paused during their transfer period and the college and professional football seasons just about to take off, there’s basically nothing on the sports schedule except tennis. The U.S. Open opens in Queens, NY, on Monday and you can spend all day watching them, from 11 a.m. until late in the evening. There are always a few upsets in the early rounds of the tournament and the crowd is second to none.

 

Thursday: If you’re sick of tennis by Thursday, (and if you really spend all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday watching it, you might be), then breathe a sigh of relief, Thursday brings variety to this week’s sports. Iceland probably doesn’t have a chance against the Netherlands in their men’s soccer European Championships qualifying match, but you never know. In the evening, tune into one of the first big college football games to watch Michigan and their new coach, Jim Harbaugh, who once starred as a quarterback there, play against Utah.

Friday: Date night takes on a patriotic tone this week as the U.S. men’s national soccer team plays against Peru. Earlier in the day, the deep and tortured history of conflict between Germany and Poland plays itself out on the soccer field as well.

Saturday: Football, football, football! This is the first truly full day of the college football schedule. There are good games to watch from noon to midnight and beyond, but the one that I’m most interested is Alabama, one of the favorites to win the championship, against Wisconsin, a team that has a punchers chance of beating them. Two playoff teams face off in one of the last games of the NWSL regular season. There’s more tennis and a NASCAR race, as well as some rare international Rugby Union action on NBC Sports Network.

Sunday: The week closes with, (yes), more tennis from the U.S. Open. Pending rain, the Round of 16 should start today, and that’s where you start to see the best play against the best. Other than that, there’s the final round of the week’s golf tournament, another NASCAR race, a decent MLS matchup, and boxing on CBS.

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.

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.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Liverpool vs. Arsenal is a hack of a game. Nice work by the British Premier League setting that up. If you work a 9-5 (or 6, as they seem to be these days,) set your DVR and watch the soccer when you get home. There’s no point in watching any NFL Preseason game, really, but the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers is truly pointless.

Tuesday: Do you enjoy watching little league baseball? I do. More than other sports, baseball is fun to watch for joy of the game, not skill of the players. Monaco vs. Valencia is the best of the early season UEFA Champions League play.

Wednesday: Manchester United looked strong in the first half of their two game series against the Belgian Team, Club Brugge. They won 3-1 and should easily advance in today’s soccer game. There’s more little league baseball in the afternoon and then a NWSL match in the evening. The Boston Breakers are in last place and the Seattle Reign are in first. The last time these two teams played, I was there in person, and the Reign won handily despite some very spirited defense from the Breakers.

Thursday: There’s nothing quite like a Canadian Football league game sandwiched between two little league baseball games. Think of it like a really weird sports ice-cream sandwich.

Friday: Date night! I think an NFL preseason game would be a hard sell, but a West Coast MLS rivalry game? Also… probably a hard sell. Neither one is a good hill to die on.

Saturday: Football, football, football, football. It’s not even time for the start of the NFL season yet and we’ve already got a weekend dominated by football. Watch some high school kids at noon and then the championship of the Arena Football League at seven p.m. The British Premier League schedule in the morning isn’t star studded, but the Tottenham vs. Everton game does feature two of the more popular teams in the U.S. market.

Sunday: There’s no hotter rivalry in United States soccer than that between the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers. If you don’t believe me, watch the match at 5 p.m. ET on ESPN. The final day of competition at the IIAF track and field World Championships should be a doozy, especially if Usain Bolt continues to struggle. I’m also interested in the last NWSL regular season game of the season on Fox Sports 1 between the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit.

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.

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.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: The Supercopa is not Spain’s most coveted soccer prize, but this game between Barcelona and Bilbao is fascinating. It’s the second leg in a two game cup tie. Bilbao upset Barcelona 4-0 in the first half, so Barcelona will need to win by even more than that today to stay in the tournament. That means the greatest offensive team in the world (Barcelona) will be throwing everything they have at the opponents in this game. Should be fun to watch!

Tuesday: During periods of Champions League play, there are a set of games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The best of the bunch and the most easily watched in the United States is Liverpool vs. the Belgian team, Club Brugge. Pair this game with the over-the-top good movie, In Bruges, and you’ve really got something!

Wednesday: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer team won the first stop on their victory tour last week, 8-0 against Costa Rica in Pittsburgh. Today, poor Costa Rica gets another shot at the World Champions, this time in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The results will probably be similar, but don’t cry for Costa Rica, they’ll be making some very nice money for their country’s soccer federation.

Thursday: The Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns are more famous for losing football games than winning them. Lucky for everyone, preseason football isn’t really football. Someone’s got to win and someone’s bound to watch, but it won’t be me.

Friday: Date night! Head off for a date night of watching some of your favorite women’s soccer players face off in a nationally televised NWSL game!

Saturday: A great blend of soccer, track and field, volleyball and car racing enables you to pretend that it’s the Olympics, if that’s your sort of thing. It’s definitely mine!

Sunday: The last stage of the Cycling USA Pro Challenge takes its riders from Golden to Denver and up the famous Lookout Mountain — a formidable pass even if the riders weren’t a mile high to start with. Which they are… so it should be exciting to watch. British Premier League soccer, golf, and preseason football round out the day’s offerings.

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.

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.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: If you didn’t get enough British soccer on Saturday or Sunday of last week — maybe you were away at a Scrabble convention — there’s one final game from the opening weekend of the British Premier League.

Tuesday: Two Spanish soccer teams play in the UEFA Super Cup which is a matchup of the winner of the UEFA Champions League (the most prestigious club soccer tournament in the world) and the UEFA Europa League (a glorified consolation tournament.) In the evening, watch some little guys (and maybe a gal or two) play baseball.

Wednesday: Errr, there’s some more Little League baseball, but otherwise… take the day off.

Thursday: The Rogers Cup is the Davis Cup of Tennis — which means it’s a team tournament where players who are used to playing only for themselves play on national teams. That makes it sometimes fun to watch, especially if you’re free during the day. In the evening, you can choose between Canadian American Football and American International Football.

Friday: Date night! Head off to your date after watching a good British Premier League soccer game or head off for a date night of watching some of your favorite women’s soccer players face off in a nationally televised NWSL game!

Saturday: Soccer, tennis, golf, and football! Who could ask for anything more? Really though, ignore the football. Even the most dire of sports fans who pay attention to preseason football risk their finely balanced sanity.

Sunday: The highlight of the day is the first friendly game on the U.S. women’s national soccer team’s victory tour. They take on Costa Rica at 1:30 p.m. in what should be a massive celebration. Manchester City vs. Chelsea should also be a humdinger of a way to start your Sunday morning.

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.

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.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Our week starts out very slowly… with only a single Canadian Football League game on the calendar. The Montreal Alouettes are a little more famous than most Canadian teams, thanks to their habit of having higher profile players. This year, they have Michael Sam, the only openly gay professional football player, on their roster but have yet to play him. Tonight won’t be the night for Sam to see his first professional action.

Tuesday: The UEFA Champions League is the most prestigious men’s club soccer competition but in its earliest stages, it rarely produces memorable games because the match-ups are so uneven. That’s probably true for tonight’s game between Monaco and Young Boys. Worried about that name? Don’t be. The Young Boys were named in opposition to a nearby rival called the Old Boys over 100 years ago.

Wednesday: The International Champions Cup, which is far less prestigious than the Champions League, finishes today with a game between the British champions, Chelsea, and Italian team Fiorentina. With domestic leagues starting soon, these two teams are likely to treat this game like a fairly serious last walk-through before they begin to play in earnest. The day of sports ends with two CONCACAF (North America, Central America, and the Caribbean) Champions League games between two MLS teams from the Pacific coast, Seattle and Vancouver, and two Mexican league teams, America and Motagua.

Thursday: The Tour of Utah is a miniature version of the Tour de France. Instead of 20 days of racing, the cyclists only have to endure seven days. The mountains are no less huge though. Stage Four features more than a mile and a half of elevation gain during a 127 mile ride. The Special Olympics continues in L.A. and continues to be rewarding to watch. And tonight’s CONCACAF Champions League game features the star-studded Los Angeles Galaxy.

Friday: Date night! Either blow off sports completely or go to a Canadian bar and watch some football while drinking Molson and eating poutine.

Saturday: There’s basically no off-season in soccer anymore, but for fans of the British Premier League, today’s opening day of matches is long awaited and highly anticipated. You can easily spend all day watching soccer, starting at 7:45 a.m. with breakfast and ending at Soldier Field Stadium in Boston, enjoying a sausage while watching the Breakers in their last home game of the year! On a non-soccer track, you can happily follow golf at 2 p.m. ET, motocross at 3, and the NFL Hall of Fame speeches at 7 p.m.

Sunday: The opening weekend of the British Premier League is joined by the first game of the NFL preseason today. Those are probably the two most hotly followed leagues in the Western World. In between there is fun golf, NASCAR, and beach volleyball action to keep an eye on.

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.

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.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: The International Champions Cup is just about the most laughable men’s soccer competition out there. It’s a series of glorified friendly games between high-profile international clubs. That said, in this basically empty week of sports, the early morning game between Inter Milan and Real Madrid should at least provide some hints of high quality competitive soccer. All week, ESPN will be showing 30 minute capsules of what’s happening at the 2015 Special Olympics in Los Angeles at 7 p.m.

Tuesday: More Special Olympics and two more International Champions Cup soccer games. Today it’s the champions of the British Premiere League, Chelsea, against the Champions League winning Barcelona. Following that game will be Mexico’s version of the New York Yankees, America vs. Benfica, the dominant team from Portugal.

Wednesday: To friendly men’s soccer and Special Olympics, we add the NWSL’s second game in the ten game package to be carried by Fox. This one, between the Houston Dash and Kansas City FC features Heather O’Reilly, Becky Sauerbrunn, Lauren Holiday, Meghan Klingenberg, and Carli Lloyd.

Thursday: This evening’s sports agenda is perfect for the American Football fan who can’t wait for fall to come and football to begin. It’s the Canadian Football League! The BC Lions and Winnipeg Blue Bombers are both 2-3 for the season so far, but that’s not far off the lead in the Western Conference. Check it out for it’s sometimes subtle and sometimes wacky differences from the NFL.

Friday: Date night! No sports worth noting! Except, of course, the nightly Special Olympics wrap-up.

Saturday: An interesting and varied day of sports lends itself to wild channel surfing. Start with men’s golf, then shift over to women’s soccer. When that’s done, you can catch what should be an enjoyable an NBA exhibition game from South Africa. In the evening, choose between a good MLS matchup and boxing on ESPN.

Sunday: Unless you’re a die-hard golf or NASCAR fan, this is a perfect Sunday to go to your local orchard or public swimming pool or air-conditioned bowling alley.

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.