Tag: weekly forecast

How to plan for the week of Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2015

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.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Take a rest. Things are about to get super sportsy this week. In fact, if you want to, skip the Monday Night Football game. Nine times out of ten, the Cardinals are going to kill the Ravens.

Tuesday: Here’s where it starts to get real. The NBA season opens with a double-header and the World Series (that’s baseball) gets started with the first game of a best-out-of-seven series between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets.

Wednesday: The World Series, unlike the NBA or NHL finals, doesn’t always take a day off between games. Game Two comes tonight right on the heels of yesterday’s Game One. Over in soccer universe, the Major League Soccer playoffs get started with two single-elimination knockout games. They’ll be worth watching if you don’t have a stake or interest in the World Series.

Thursday: The World Series wisely takes a night off to make room for the NFL. Nothing in today’s sporting landscape can go up against the NFL and not look bad, at least in terms of ratings. Major League Soccer apparently just doesn’t care, they’re playing two more knockout playoff games.

Friday: Date night! If you’re hanging around in the afternoon, stomach full of butterflies, settle yourself by watching some good horse racing or some even better rugby. Then enjoy Game Three of the World Series on the date!

Saturday: It’s another week of uninspiring college football matchups. There’s only one game with two top twenty five ranked teams playing each other, and that’s Notre Dame vs. Temple. Luckily, the British have us covered. Start your day with a great soccer game between Chelsea and Liverpool at 8:45 a.m. and then switch over to the Rugby World Cup finals (hosted by England this year) between Australia and New Zealand. Seriously — don’t miss the rugby. It’s going to be awesome.

Sunday: There’s soccer and football and baseball on all day. It’s a sports fan’s aspirational Sunday.

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.

How to plan for the week of Oct 19 – 25, 2015

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.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: The Toronto Blue Jays try desperately to avoid going down 3-0 to the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series (the semifinals of Major League Baseball’s playoffs.) In the NFL, the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants try desperately not to lose to their arch-rivals. There’s a lot of desperation going around for a Monday night.

Tuesday: A playoff baseball double-header is nothing to mess with. Watch game four of the ALCS, which could be an elimination game followed by game three of the more lovable and therefore more heart wrenching NLCS between the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs. If you need a fix of soccer before the baseball starts, there’s a full afternoon of UEFA Champions League action. The only game on a channel you probably have is Arsenal vs. Bayern Munich.

Wednesday: Unless the Royals sweep the Blue Jays, we’ll get another juicy MLB playoff double-header today — likely the last of the season. In the evening, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team continues its victory tour with a friendly game against Brazil. In addition, we’ll be doing a Dear Sports Fan Meetup to watch the Boston Bruins play the Philadelphia Flyers. If you’re in the Boston area, join us!

Thursday: The highlight of the day is a pivotal Game Five in the NLCS between the Mets and Cubs. That should overshadow the Thursday Night Football game between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers but thanks to gambling, fantasy football, and sheer perversity, the NFL game will still be watched by way more people. Help even the scales. Watch baseball.

Friday: Date night! If the ALCS between the Royals and Blue Jays has been settled by now, you’re free to have a non-sports date. If they’re still going, you might find a romantic bar… with a TV to be a good spot for a cozy get-together.

Saturday: It’s an oddly weak slate of college football games. You can tell by the fact that I had room to sneak my alma mater, Rutgers, onto the featured games list, even though they’re likely to be beaten by 50 points. If both MLB playoff series are still going on, they will more than make up for it. This has the potential to be a legendary afternoon and evening of baseball!

Sunday: If you want, you could watch about 15 hours in a row of NFL football today or 15 hours of soccer. It’s an incredibly versatile day. If there’s a Game Seven in the NLCS between the Cubs and the Mets, that would be a bonus of the sort that dwarfs the salary it’s augmenting.

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.

How to plan for the week of Oct 12 – 18, 2015

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. Same deal, for the most part, with NFL football games. For those, see our NFL Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Columbus Day may be of dubious value as a historic holiday but it’s of intense value as a sports holiday. Sit back and enjoy four playoff baseball games, a good European Championship qualifying soccer game, an interesting Monday Night Football game, and a handful of NHL games that couldn’t even break into our calendar.

Tuesday: The Netherlands are a proud soccer country with a long history of top-level competition but they’re struggling just to qualify for next year’s European Championships. They need a win in today’s game against the Czech Republic. Two more MLB playoff games and a modern-classic NHL matchup round out today’s sports.

Wednesday: The WNBA finals come to a conclusion today with a winner-take all fifth game between the Minnesota Lynx and Indiana Fever. That might be enough to steer at least one of your eyes away from playoff baseball or early season hockey.

Thursday: The divisional round of the baseball playoffs will come to an end today, unless all the series are over by now… it’s impossible to know on Monday morning when I’m writing this. If they are still happening, they’ll be happening in an exciting crescendo. The normal Thursday Night NFL game is a good one this week and it’s joined by a north/south California rivalry college football game: UCLA vs. Stanford.

Friday: Date night! The American League Championship Series (semifinals to the World Series) begins today and may sway you from your appointed date. Other than that, although the calendar looks full, I don’t think high school football (even though it’s a historic rivalry in Washington DC!!) or boxing is going to be much of a problem for negotiating some couple’s time.

Saturday: Two classic college football rivalries: Michigan vs. Michigan State and Florida vs. LSU highlight today’s college football games. In baseball, the National League Championship series will begin and the AL one will move to its second game. In soccer, the British Premier League returns to action after a few weeks off for international soccer.

Sunday: The NFL eclipses everything else on most Sundays during the fall. That’s true today, especially at night when the New England Patriots try to exact Deflategate related revenge on the Indianapolis Colts. Wedged into the sports schedule are some other compelling events: women’s college soccer, MLS soccer, a NASCAR race, the second game of the NLCS, and the second weekend of the NWHL’s existence!

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.

How to plan for the week of Oct 5 – 11, 2015

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. Same deal, for the most part, with NFL football games. For those, see our NFL Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: We’ll all be able to take a breath during the day and recover from this past weekend’s sports excesses. In the evening, the NFL returns with a compelling game between the Detroit Lions and Seattle Seahawks. Both teams seem to be tumbling backwards this year and it’s always interesting to see who can stop their fall and start climbing again and how they do it.

Tuesday: Major League Baseball’s playoffs get started today with a one-game wildcard game in the American League. A lot of people are opposed to the existence of these games. It seems cruel to end a team’s playoff run, after a 162 game regular season, with a single defeat. It sure pumps up the drama though, there’s no denying that. At the same time, the WNBA finals get serious with game two between the Minnesota Lynx and Indiana Fever.

Wednesday: It’s hockey season again! Let me repeat: it’s hockey season again! I love hockey. If you want to know why, and why many people love hockey, read my post on the topic. The first nationally televised game of the season is the defending champion Chicago Blackhawks playing against the New York Rangers, who lost in the semifinals last year. It should be a good game but more importantly, it signals the return of hockey! All that said, I can’t really recommend watching it over the MLB’s National League wildcard game which starts at the same time.

Thursday: The European Championships are considered by some people to be an equal or even a superior tournament to the World Cup. How could it be better? Because of the geographic distribution of teams in the World Cup, some feel that the European only field is actually deeper with more skilled teams than the World Cup whose Asian, African, and North American representatives rarely make it past the first knockout round. The next European Championships will be in the summer of 2016 but its qualifying tournament has already begun. Watch Ireland try to upset Germany today. Later on, switch over to the first games of baseball’s divisional series. Or, if you prefer America’s new past-time to its old or future ones, watch a divisional NFL game between the Colts and Texans.

Friday: Date night!

Saturday: Of all the college football on this Saturday, my favorite game to watch will be Navy vs Notre Dame. Navy is such a joy to watch. They play football using a mostly antiquated but still surprisingly effective offensive system called the triple option. This involves running the ball on nearly every play. To make up for the loss of surprise over whether they’ll run or pass, they set up two or three different players who look like they’re going to carry the ball. If the defense guesses wrong, they’ll pay for it. At night, there’s one of the biggest non-World Cup men’s international soccer games in memory. The United States and Mexico play in a one-game playoff to decide who qualifies for the next Confederations Cup. This international tournament is important because its held in the spot of the next World Cup (Russia) the year before the World Cup. It provides an opportunity for something close to a dress rehearsal and is perceived as providing a big advantage for the teams that qualify. This only adds fuel to the always simmering fire of the U.S. vs. Mexico men’s soccer rivalry.

Sunday: The NFL eclipses everything else on most Sundays during the fall. That’s true this Sunday but there are a few other events to keep your eye on. If you’re a golf fan at all, you should check in on the final round of the Presidents Cup. The baseball playoffs, with one game on in the evening, offer a reasonable alternative to football. European championships qualifying soccer and Game Three of the WNBA finals are also strong contenders.

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.

How to plan for the week of Sept 28 – Oct 4, 2015

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. Same deal, for the most part, with NFL football games. For those, see our NFL Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Football rules the day. Spend the morning talking about the weekend’s NFL action. Spend the afternoon enjoying a mid-table British Premier League soccer match between Everton and West Brom. Spend the evening watching an excellent NFL football game, the last of the weekend, between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs.

Tuesday: The UEFA Champions League match between Barcelona and Beyer Leverkusen will be the first Barcelona has played since losing its star player, its heart and soul, Lionel Messi. This may actually make it a more interesting game to watch, both because it should give Beyer Leverkusen a better chance of winning, but also because it gives us a chance to see how Barcelona plays without Messi. In the evening, its game three of the Eastern Conference finals between the WNBA’s New York Liberty and Indiana Fever. Since the WNBA plays best two out of three game series in their playoffs, this is a single elimination game with a finals berth on the line.

Wednesday: The Italian soccer team Juventus is having a funny year. Runners up in last year’s Champions League, you would expect that they are one of the top teams in the world. This doesn’t seem to be true. They’re way down in the Italian Serie A standings. A win against the Spanish side, Sevilla, may give them some confidence to take back to domestic league play. As the weather gets colder, baseball fans start thinking about the playoffs. Today’s featured game, between the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, could easily be a preview of an upcoming playoff matchup.

Thursday: The NFL has made a strong bid to own Thursday nights, and this week’s game between the rival Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers should be a physical, intriguing game. The Ravens are without a win so far this year and the Steelers will be without their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, because of a knee injury. Nonetheless, the biggest game of the night is in the NWSL. It’s the championship game on Fox Sports 1 between FC Kansas City and Seattle Reign FC. This is a rematch of last year’s title game, which Kansas City won 2-1. It will feature a slew of players we saw in the World Cup, including Americans Becky Sauerbrunn, Amy Rodriguez, Heather O’Reilly, and Lauren Holiday, as well as Australian international, Katrina Gorry on Kansas City and USA goalie Hope Solo and midfielder Megan Rapinoe on Seattle. My guess is that Seattle wins this one. They’ve looked near-unbeatable for most of the season.

Friday: Date night! Relive your college days with a college volleyball rivalry between Duke and UNC on ESPN U at 6 p.m. ET and then get all prepped up for an Ivy League soccer game between Princeton and Columbia at 7 p.m.

Saturday: There’s a slew of good college football games between top 25 ranked teams, the biggest of which may be a newly vulnerable-looking Alabama vs. Georgia. We also have a somewhat parallel game in British soccer between up-and-coming Southampton, and a similarly vulnerable former champion, Chelsea. The most exciting match of the day isn’t in either form of football, it’s in Rubgy where England plays Australia in the Rugby World Cup. If you’re in the Boston area, come watch it with the Dear Sports Fan Viewing Party Meetup group and me!!

Sunday: An American football game invades London to start today’s sporting schedule. For perhaps (?) the first time, the NFL has sent a divisional game to England. The Miami Dolphins and New York Jets are both coming off disappointing losses and will both be determined to win in London before taking the next week off. In British British football, Arsenal vs. Manchester City is about as big of a game as you could get. Combine these two events with the first game of the WNBA finals, the AAA 400 in NASCAR, and a West Coast MLS showdown between Los Angeles and Seattle, and we’ve got another excellent and full Sunday of sports.

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.

How to plan for the week of Sept 21-27, 2015

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. Same deal, for the most part, with NFL football games. For those, see our NFL Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Got a case of the Mondays? I can’t help you. At least not until Monday night, when there’s a reasonably interesting brain vs. brawn NFL matchup with the Jets playing the part of brawn and the Colts, brain. They’ve both got both, of course, but… every game needs a plot.

Tuesday: It’s international day — starting with German soccer, shifting to an international cycling championships, and ending with a great MLB baseball game between the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays. They’re divisional opponents battling it out for the division title but it’s still a cross-border affair.

Wednesday: The Capital One Cup is a tournament in British soccer, open to any team in the top two divisions. That’s 92 teams — way more than normal Premier League play. Unfortunately for American viewers, we normally only get the games between two Premier league teams. That’s true in today’s game. In the evening, I suggest watching two Florida colleges battle it out on the women’s volleyball court.

Thursday: Only one of the semifinal teams in the WNBA has been decided yet, the Phoenix Mercury. Regardless of who is playing, the playoffs are the playoffs, and they’re worth watching! Later on, the New York Giants and Washington Redskins play. Although both teams have looked poor so far this year, the injury to Tony Romo, the quarterback of their divisional rivals, leaves their division wide-open. This should be a hotly contested game.

Friday: Date night! You have my permission to ignore sports completely.

Saturday: Start the day in England and work your way gradually westward. Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City is a compelling game, particularly since City just lost their first game of the year this past weekend. While UCLA vs. Arizona and Utah vs. Oregon are the only college football games between top 25 ranked teams, I’d rather watch Texas Tech and TCU battle it out for supremacy in the sneaky Texas smaller football program division. If you want to stick with baseball, it’s hard to find a game better than the Cubs and the Pirates.

Sunday: Get up early and root for the USA in the Rugby World Cup as we take on Scotland. The USA team lost its first match to Samoa, so this is virtually a must win game. (Note that I do not know if that is true. It just sounds good.) At 11 a.m. you get a rare chance to see Watford play soccer. This leads into a wonderful afternoon of vegging out on NFL football, men’s golf, women’s basketball, NASCAR, and an excellent MLS soccer game. Enjoy!

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.

How to plan for the week of Sept 14-20, 2015

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. Same deal, for the most part, with NFL football games. For those, see our NFL Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: If you spent your weekend watching football and want a little soccer, there should be a good British Premier League game on in the afternoon. Alternatively, if you spent your weekend watching football and you want some more football… there’s more tonight!

Tuesday: The UEFA Champions league is the biggest and best club soccer tournament in the world. Today’s best game features one of the top three British teams against one of the top three Dutch teams. In the evening, settle in for a Texan battle in Major League Baseball. The Rangers are only 1.5 games back from the Astros in the standings, so it’s an important game too.

Wednesday: Another Champions league game (this one between the top German team and top Greek team) and another important baseball game between teams scrambling for wild card playoff spots.

Thursday: Women’s sports take over for the day. At 7 p.m., catch the U.S. Women’s National soccer team play Haiti on their victory tour. An hour later, once the USA is up by 17 goals, switch over to an WNBA playoff game.

Friday: Date night! There’s not much to ignore today in the sports world, just some college soccer and a middling college football game. Go out, enjoy yourself!

Saturday: There are an enormous number of college football games and a bunch of them are really compelling this week. Four games match top 25 ranked teams against each other, so those are the four we featured in this calendar. Chelsea vs. Arsenal in the British Premier League is about as good a soccer game as you could wish for, and the battle of New York (often called the Subway Series) is actually relevant this year because both teams are in the playoff hunt.

Sunday: Wow, this is a full day of sports. On top of the oodles of NFL action, which you can get info later in the week on by looking at our NFL Forecast, there’s also a full day of soccer. Start in the morning in England, move to the United States for a women’s international friendly in the afternoon, and they stay in-country for a Major League Soccer game at 5 p.m. If you’re not into football of either sorts, you can feast on early morning rugby, a golf championship, a WNBA playoff basketball game, and a NASCAR race!

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.

How to plan for the week of Sept 7-13, 2015

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.

How to plan for the week of Aug 31 – Sept 6, 2015

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.

How to plan for the week of Aug 24 – 30, 2015

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.