A Smorgasbord Of Pro Sports Is On The Menu In The Next Few Months

Good news, sports fans.

After several months without pro sports earlier this year due to the pandemic, the late summer and fall are shaping up to be a bonanza for major sporting events.

Between now and November, sports fans can enjoy the NBA and NHL playoffs, baseball’s pennant races and postseason, the MLS season and playoffs, The U.S. Open and Masters in golf, the U.S. Open and French Open in tennis, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in horse racing, plus the NFL and college football regular seasons (hopefully).

Last Thursday, for example, there were four NBA playoff games, two NHL playoff tilts, 14 MLB contests and the NBA Draft Lottery, as well as the beginning of the FedEx Cup playoffs and the release of the Premier League
PINC
schedule.

“All these events, when we come out of this, whenever the date is we come out of this, all these events are going to get jammed into a couple of months, where we are going to have sports Shangri-La,” longtime New York radio broadcaster Mike Francesa correctly forecast in March in a clip captured by The Big Lead.

While some major events, including the NCAA Tournament, Wimbledon and the British Open were canceled, and the Tokyo Olympics were pushed to 2021, a number of major events were pushed until later in the year, albeit without fans in attendance.

**In basketball, the NBA playoffs are heating up, with Luka Doncic, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James among those starring in the Orlando bubble.

The last possible date for Game 7 of the NBA Finals is Oct. 13.

**In hockey, the playoffs began on Aug. 1 in the hubs of Edmonton and Toronto, and will conclude no later than Oct. 4, with the Stanley Cup Finals. The playoffs were originally scheduled to begin in April, a few days after the 2019–20 NHL season, and end in June.

**In baseball, several teams have had their seasons interrupted by Covid, including the Marlins, Cardinals and Mets, but the hope is the season can continue. The first round of the revised 16-team playoffs, scheduled for Sept. 29-Oct. 2, will be four three-game series in each league with all games played at the higher seed’s home stadium.

Meantime, due to the some games being delayed by Covid, the schedules of some teams have been condensed. The Yankees and Mets, for example, will play five games in three days this weekend at Yankee Stadium.

**In football, the college football season will now be played without teams from the Big Ten or Pac-12, while the SEC, ACC and Big 12 all plan to play beginning next month. The NFL season is set to begin Sept. 10.

**In golf, the U.S. Open start date was pushed from June 18 to Sept. 17, while The Masters was moved from April 9 to Nov. 9 and the PGA Championship from May 14 to Aug. 6.

**In tennis, the U.S. Open main draw is still scheduled to begin Aug. 31, while the warm-up tournament for the Open, the Western & Southern Open, is running this week in New York. Meantime, the French Open start date was pushed to Sept. 27 from May 24.

That means, between September and January, when the Australian Open runs, the world’s top tennis players will be competing in three Grand Slam events in a span of five months. Some, like Rafael Nadal on the men’s side, and Ash Barty and Simona Halep on the women’s side, have opted to skip New York due to Covid concerns and will focus on the clay.

**In horse racing, the Kentucky Derby is now set for Sept. 5, with the Preakness Oct. 3. The Belmont Stakes ran June 20.