Sports

[out_there]

musesfool helped me out with figuring out which sports are played when. I used it as an excuse to practice my mad Excel skills, and made myself a spreadsheet.




Are there any other sports I'm missing? Are they national or international? Would they be reported frequently on a sports show? (Please remember what I know about sports could fit into a thimble... A very, very small thimble.)

Comments

[tangleofthorns.livejournal.com]

Golf. I couldn't help you much with the dates, but the Masters are right now, and SportsCenter definitely covers the major golf stuff.

The Olympics would obviously preempt pretty much everything else. Soccer--they'd force Dan to suck it up and deal with World Cup highlights, but I can't help you with dates. Occasionally there'd be other things, like boxing matches. You're missing a couple of major tennis events (the US Open and French Open, in particular, are big).

College basketball (men's and women's) have their big tournament in March, some games would be covered before that, but the tournament throughout March would get major play. College football gets a lot of attention in the winter, and the big "bowl" games are all around new year's. Other college sports usually aren't a big deal unless someone's breaking a big record.

If I think of anything else I'll come back.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Olympics. Good point. Let's see... last one was... 2002, in Sydney? Or was that 2000? I have no idea. Time to google.

... Screw it, that was 2000. Bloody hell, that just makes it annoying to try to write fic set then...

I'm going to have to do a little research, and get my internal time line straight.

College basketball (men's and women's) have their big tournament in March, some games would be covered before that, but the tournament throughout March would get major play. College football gets a lot of attention in the winter, and the big "bowl" games are all around new year's. Other college sports usually aren't a big deal unless someone's breaking a big record.

*sigh* So, the college basketball and football isn't the same times as the pro stuff? Far out. (Too many damn sports.)

Okay, so maybe you could answer this question, is the Superbowl pro football, or college football? Because that's late Jan, right? So, early Jan in the college ball playoffs/finals/championships (whatever the heck they're called)?

If I think of anything else I'll come back.

Thanks for the help. As you can tell, I find this stuff kinda mind-boggling. *g*

[elvisneedsboats.livejournal.com]

The Super Bowl is pro football. All college sports are considered amateur (and they're not allowed to be paid for them), so, yeah, separate from the pro leagues. The college basketball tournament is generally referred to as "March Madness" and is HUGE (in terms of popularity; I think people get more into it than pro basketball). It ranks right up there with the Super Bowl and the (baseball) World Series (also pro *g*).

Also, the college "championships" for football are a sort of strange system that has had people debating forever about the validity of calling any one team an actual "winner." It's quite complicated and has LOTS of room for debate (I could so hear Dan and/or Casey going on and on about the subject...*laughs*). There are a series of "bowl" games that take place during roughly a month-long period from mid-December to mid-January.

Hmm. I think you left out hockey? The Stanley Cup is the hockey championship for the NHL, in the US. The season runs from October through April, with the Stanley Cup tournament taking place...right about now, actually.

Huh. I guess growing up in a sports-oriented family comes in handy on occasion. :D

[elvisneedsboats.livejournal.com]

Ah, you did have hockey. Wow, I didn't realize the tournament actually takes three months to complete. *boggles*

[out-there.livejournal.com]

You think you're boggling.

I'm just going to sigh and close this up, and not think about it for a while. I'm not going to get my head around it at the moment. (Headache.)

[kikiduck.livejournal.com]

But there are also the Winter Olympics, which would also be covered, particularly if it was like 2002 and they were in the country.

There's a few horse races that get coverage. The Kentucky Derby is always the first Saturday in May, the Preakness runs a couple weeks after that, the Belmont is a couple weeks after that, putting it at early June sometime. And then the Breeder's Cup is in fall sometime, I think. Maybe October, but I really can't remember. Those four usually get covered, everything else seems to depend on if it's a slow night or if something really cool happened.

This is the first time I've ever used this icon. Hurray! It does have a use!

[celli]

Car racing: NASCAR is mid-February to mid-November. (Casey, shut up, it is TOO a sport.)

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Hee! Okay, I'm adding the extra info, and then I'll update the spreadsheet picture above.

[flippet.livejournal.com]

Figure skating. October through March or so. World championships were last week. US nationals are in January (which would be relevant for D&C), other countries vary.

As for reported frequently? Not nearly frequently enough, if you ask me. ;) Hey, it's something Dan could really get into. The scoring system makes even less sense than soccer.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Okay, not reported frequently, but still reported. Am adding it now. *g*

[kikiduck.livejournal.com]

Hee, I'd pay good money to see Dan go on about scoring in figure skating. That'd be priceless.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

I can also hear him and Casey having the "is it a sport or not" argument.

(it's *not*)

[jcalanthe]

(US National) College basketball is huge, especially men's. March Madness is the men's NCAA tournament, which runs into the first weekend in April. The NIT is around the same time, for teams who don't make it into the NCAA. But the season starts in Dec or Jan, with preseason games and invitationals in Nov & Dec (I'm thinking US Thanksgiving weekend is when the first preseason games get played. The NCAA certainly has a website you could look this up on. Results of games played by teams in the top 25 by the AP poll usually get reported nationally, especially if there's an upset or if the teams are local to station reporting.

The (US national) college football (just men) season runs from Aug/Sept thru Nov/Dec, with various bowl games in Dec & Jan. Bowl games definitely get reported on, and thru the regular season, teams in the top 25 get reported on, especially locally.

We get local college baseball reported on here. I'm pretty sure that at least the college world series (again, men) gets reported on a bit.

More pro golf gets reported on than the Masters, but since I abhor golf, I couldn't tell you more details.

There's also a slew of sports like track & field & swimming, which very occasionally get reported on, especially around the Olympics. Big marathons get reported on at least locally.

You could check out ESPN's website to get more of a feel for sports coverage - they have at least 2 cable channels, and report on all manner of things, including poker and bowling at times.

But really? Aaron Sorkin knows not a lot about sports too, so I wouldn't worry too much about your lack of knowledge. If you do want more, my token mainstream straight guyfriend is way into sports and I'd be happy to put you 2 in touch. :)

[apathocles.livejournal.com]

Re: tennis -- the other two Grand Slam events are the Australian Open (January) and the US Open (August-Septemberish, I think). Australian Open may or may not get a huge amount of coverage on Sports Night (and why am I thinking about it as if it's a real show?), but the US would, especially since it's held in New York.

Cycling, particularly if it's mid-year -- the Tour de France is in July, and Lance Armstrong (American) won in 2000 (as well as a whole lot of other years ;) ). There're always a lot of stories about him, because he overcame cancer to make it back to the top level.

Other than that, you've got stuff like athletics, which yeah, would mostly be Olympics-related, but there are some big athletics meets that get some coverage (such as the Golden League (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/3035470.stm)), and so forth. Swimming probably isn't as at the forefront in the US as it is here, but would have to get an occasional mention. Soccer would have to get a mention, especially if it's during the leadup to the World Cup (which it wouldn't be, if your story's set during the leadup to the Olympics *g*).

Afraid I'm not much help, since I watch a lot of Sports Tonight, which is somewhat Australian-based. Lots of cricket, Aussie Rules, and rugby, none of which are all that helpful here. They also tend to have a lot of surfing stories, as well as ski stories and snow reports in the winter. Shitloads of motor racing (is F1 big in the States? I have no idea). Soccer. Lots of golf and horse-racing. (Yawn.)

[apathocles.livejournal.com]

Why the hell did I mention soccer twice? SBS is corrupting my brain....

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

Pritty! When I feel better, I'm stealing this. My thimble would be even smaller than your thimble, and have a big hole in the top. Which is a bit of a drawback (though not wholly) to adding verisimilu

I forgot how to spell that halfway through

to any potential SN fic.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Feel free to steal. Or, I can email you the excel file, if you wish.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I see other people are helping to fill in. I'm sorry I forgot about golf. I seem to get stuck watching it a lot at my parents' house. *snerk*

Also, the summer Olympics will be coming up this year in Athens, if you're writing 'futurefic' for SN.

The big college basketball tournament is the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association, iirc) Championships, colloquially known as "the NCAAs" or "March Madness." Just ended this week, in fact, with UConn winning both the men's and women's championships (the first time ever the same school has one both in the same year).

And yes to the person who said they'd force them to report World Cup Soccer highlights (and it *is* called soccer here, not football - I've seen any number of Brits/Aussies make this mistake).

[out-there.livejournal.com]

And yes to the person who said they'd force them to report World Cup Soccer highlights (and it *is* called soccer here, not football - I've seen any number of Brits/Aussies make this mistake).

Huh. You'd think that'd be Brits making that error. Aussie's call soccer, soccer. Football is rugby/Aussie rules.

Thanks for being so helpful about this stuff, Victoria.

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

Tennis: someone else pointed out the Aus Open: US Open is in September. There's also the Davis Cup (first round early Feb, second early April, Semis in September and the final in December) and the Federation Cup, which is the women's version of the Davis Cup. Hopman Cup (mixed teams) is the first week in January, the first week of Leadup tournaments to the Aus Open. Then there's the Masters Series, which for men finishes (currently) with a one-week tournment that is hosted in different cities each year, in the last week of November. The women's Masters is the week prior.

Golf: all year around. The Australian tour used to be bigger than it is now, it runs over our summer. US/European tour over their summer - the British Open would certainly get coverage, but I can't give you dates.

Olympics: there's also the Winter Olympics, which were in 1998 (Nagano, Japan) and 2002 (Salt Lake City), and are in a four year rotation as are the Summer Olympics.

If SN felt really keen, and if world records were broken, they might deign to cover the Commonwealth Games, which are run in the same year as the Winter Olympics, and in 1998 were in Kuala Lumpur.

Swimming: I should know these things, but I think the World Championships are at two year intervals. Australia and the US usually go head to head in a major rivalry.

There are others I could probably help with, but those listed above are my major sporting obsessions. Just ask for clarification, and I"ll do my best.