The 25 Best Sports Days of the Year, Ranked

Image via Complex Original

Sport: Football

The NFL’s managed to trick all of us into watching non-football NFL programming all year round. The season itself is only five months long—the other seven months of the year, we’re starved for football. Thankfully, made-up league things like the NFL Draft exist to make the annual “back to football” campaign a staple of our sports calendar. After April's draft, you can feel your team coming together. It’s a reminder than training camp is only three months away—just enjoy the NBA until then.

Overall though, I can imagine being an NFL Draft pick, and experiencing the NFL Draft is like meeting your girl’s parents for the first time.

You get dressed up in a special suit, because you want to make a killer first impression. You practice your life story, ironing out any faults to boost your stock. Once you’re at the draft, they make you sit in separate “green room”—away from the team you want to be with. While waiting, you're so nervous that you’re fake happy, but also anxious that the pre-draft process has lasted so long. Is it awkward that you’re joining an NFL team after only a few short months sort-of getting to know each other through scouting reports and interviews with team officials? Should I have met the commissioner earlier, like Jameis Winston did? Insecurities are abound.

Ultimately though, it all boils down to the 1-on-1 meeting: the handshake with the commissioner. All the fans, lights, and cameras are focused on you after being called up—it’s your first official introduction to the NFL world. Don’t have sweaty palms.

Sport: Tennis

NBC’s “Breakfast at Wimbledon” has been an American tennis tradition for decades. Television rights to the semifinal and final now belong to ESPN (Some time ago, NBC decided the “Today” show’s precious morning ratings were more important than live broadcasting a major sports event). With the U.S. being five hours behind the U.K. (time is only thing the British will ever be ahead of us in), the Wimbledon Final happens right during primetime breakfast hours.

Every single year, I forget that Wimbledon’s on, only to fall into watching it on Lazy Sunday. See, once you notice that your regularly scheduled Sportscenter binge—an essential part of any Sunday morning hangover cure—has been overtaken by competitive lawn tennis, you accept it and give thanks for elite level live sports being on. Starting your final Sunday of June over some piping hot tennis and your choice of breakfast foods (arguably the best type of food) is the perfect way to get those summertime sports juices flowing.

Sport: Horse racing

Every first Saturday of May, the “Fastest Two Minutes in Sports” goes down. As the first leg of horse racing’s triple crown, this may be the only horse racing event you watch all year. Everyone skips the Preakness—if there’s a Triple Crown opportunity at the Belmont Stakes, then your sports viewing diet makes room for two horse races. Outside of Breeder’s Cup races, the Kentucky Derby is the toughest, highest-level race the sport has to offer. What other niche sporting event would NFL players bother to pop mollys at? Perhaps a monster truck derby, sure, but the fuckery masked in pageantry at the Kentucky Derby is quite legendary.

Also, Mint Juleps are awesome.

Sport: Auto Racing

Alongside the Indy 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, this Formula 1 race helps make up auto-racing’s own “Triple Crown” of events. The fastest cars on the planet zip along Monaco’s tight, winding streets, fighting around chicanes and impossibly acute passing angles. All exciting in theory, but this grand prix is actually one of the most potentially boring races on Formula 1 calendar. The narrowness of Monaco’s streets/the actual “racetrack” makes passing very difficult. The beauty of the spectacle (have you ever seen Monaco, man? It’s sick), however, turns the viewing experience into a two hour live look inside the city, with super fast badass cars just happening to be whizzing by.

Sport: Track and Field

If there’s one Olympic event to catch every four years, it’s this one. The men’s Olympic 100 meter final is how we determine who the fastest human alive is. Sporting legends like Jessie Owens, Carl Lewis, and Usain Bolt were forged out of this event. These are great athletes, and the 100 meter final is our greatest test of the limits of human physicality and speed. Our species is over 7 billion strong, making the sheer organization of this race an accomplishment. Cheetahs don’t meet up every four years to decide who the fastest cat alive is. Humans do though, which makes this race the primary thing that separates us from the animals.

Sport: Soccer

Simply put, this is the biggest year-to-year soccer game in the world. Barcelona and Real Madrid have faced off 262 times over the past century, and on average, an El Clasico happens like three times a season. Between La Liga, Copa del Rey, and possible Champions League encounters, the most hyped match in soccer can happen at any point during the European soccer season. The last one of the season usually means the most though, because it’s almost always either for a Cup Final or for a vital three points in La Liga.

Sport: Auto Racing

Every Memorial Day weekend, American auto-racing only has to share the sporting spotlight with youth soccer tournaments and backyard whiffle ball. The “Double Duty” easily trumps both those things. When the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 both happen the same day, daring drivers will try to compete and finish in both events. Only four drivers have accomplished this feat—Tony Stewart’s 2001 attempt was the last time a driver successfully made it through all 1,100 miles. Even when there aren’t drivers competing for Double Duty recognition, the simple fact that the two biggest U.S. races happen back-to-back like this makes Memorial Day extra popping.

Sport: Soccer

European club soccer generally runs from August to May. By mid-May, league titles have been decided, leaving the Champions League Final as the last bump of top class club soccer for junkies to obsess over. Whichever two teams are left standing in late-May are the absolute best world soccer has to offer, making this a can’t-miss fixture for any fan of soccer, big or small. The winning team this year will also taken home $11.4 million in prize money (just from that one game!), which isn’t too shabby.

Sport: Football

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is about more than eating turkey sandwiches, dicing up endless amounts of mirepoix, and rinsing out residual Black Friday shitstains . Nah fam, it goes beyond the food. The meaning of the Saturday after Thanksgiving is rooted in college football. Rivalry games happen throughout Thanksgiving weekend, but Saturday is when the best matchups tend be scheduled. Honestly, the best football on over the Thanksgiving holiday is played on that Saturday. (Fuck the Lions and the Cowboys.) Ohio State vs. Michigan and Auburn vs. Alabama are sanctified.

Sport: Basketball

The NBA on Christmas has been lame these past few years, but like a spoiled child who got coal instead of a car, can we really complain that much? The Lakers and Knicks may suck, and the league’s insistence on giving them Christmas Day slots is doubly sucky, but what the hell man: It’s Christmas! And NBA basketball is on from noon to night! It’s literally the only day of the year where it’s somewhat socially acceptable to watch 12 hours of basketball (with food and gift breaks sprinkled throughout) without a single care in the world. No work, no troubles, no bullshit. It’s arguably NBA Twitter’s biggest day too.

Sport: Football

Wild Card weekend is where six seeds rise up. It can be a mutinous period of football, but that’s the fun of it. There have only been six Wild Card teams to win the Super Bowl since the inception of the Wild Card in 1978, and this weekend is where those runs begin. The Saturday of January’s Wild Card weekend is of special importance though—it helps alleviate the sore spot left by the departure of college football. As the lead day for an ENTIRE weekend of high-quality NFL football, Wild Card Saturday is a treasure.

Sport: Football

The new college football playoff system has brought a newfound importance to New Year’s Day. Formerly a day reserved for the Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl, college football is doing much more on New Year’s Day from here on out. Both those bowl games still happen, but this year, both college football playoff semifinal games went down that day too. The Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl were played as semifinal events for the first time, making a traditionally huge day for bowl games into an “amateur” version of NFL’s Championship Sunday. I’m all for that.

Sport: N/A

To many readers, this may actually be the “best” day on his or her personal sports calendar. Over 33 million people, including 6.4 million women, play fantasy football every year. There’s an entire FX comedy series based on this day. For those 33 million people, fantasy football draft day will determine how every single day of their lives is lived until either a championship is achieved, or the Sacko is served. The average fantasy sports player consumes over eight hours of fantasy-related content per week—all of which is tailored around who’s on your team, which is decided how? Mostly through the draft. For anyone who allows fantasy football to play an unreasonably large role in their lives, this day is holy.

Sport: Golf

The final day of golf’s premiere event. The day that fly-ass green jacket gets strapped on another lucky golfer. The day I actually watch golf.

Every April, Sunday at the Masters brings the kind of afternoon, balmy spring time peace that only the low, hushed buzz off a golf event can.

Sport: Soccer

Last year’s World Cup Final was the most watched game in American soccer history. 26.5 million Americans tuned in to watch Germany beat Argentina—nearly two million than the 24.7 million who watched the USMNT’s match against Portugal in the 2014 group stage. More Americans watched a World Cup match involving two foreign countries than they did when their own country played.

If this a World Cup final happened every year, it’d be No. 1 on this list. Without a doubt, this is the biggest and best single sporting event in the world, but because it only comes around once every four years, it’s slid down the rankings here. One could make an argument that the whole once every four years thing makes the game more special, and therefore better—not an incorrect view to have by any means, but nah: the more World Cup, the better. I want this fever every year, not just in-between presidential election cycles.

Sport: Baseball

Every Opening Day, the air outside magically changes. Americana comes alive. The raw winter cold evaporates (sorry if you live far enough north to be on Russia’s winter schedule) and the scent of lawn mower exhaust (“freshly cut grass”), crackling hot dogs, and pine tar (hot aluminum alloy for Little Leaguers) ushers in the warm-weather seasons. On Opening Day, it’s easier to breathe. None of those things actually increase the oxygen supply in our air, but it sure as hell feels like it.

Baseball being back not only signals the spring warmth ahead, but also gives sports fans a new distraction. March Madness comes and goes, the NBA regular season winds down in April, the NFL Draft isn’t here yet—the first week of April is a tricky time for a sports fan. Opening Day fills the void (and the headlines).

Sport: Basketball

If you can move past the annual disappointment of having your bracket busted by this day, then this is one of the best basketball days of the year. The allure of the Final Four—the last remnants of a 68-team field—doesn’t have an agreeable peer in major professional sports. From the stupefying $11.8 billion television rights contract to the sheer size of the bracket, there aren’t any other postseasons in organized sports anything like this. And the Final Four and its back-to-back semifinal games are the jewel of it all.

Sport: Soccer

Celebrating a game-winning World Cup goal scored by your country is the pinnacle of sports fandom. Combining the instinctive attraction we have to modes of play and arrangements of competition with rabid nationalism equals a very lit sporting situation. Multiply that by how hard your mind nuts when goals are just like, normally scored, and you can understand why the World Cup is King.

Sport: Football

All you do on Thanksgiving is eat food and watch football. And we, as an American society, have decided that this is totally cool. For once, loved ones (I mean your girl) can’t flame you for sitting on your ass, watching the NFL, and eating poultry. (I mean I have this exact problem every NFL Sunday because my girl, very understandably, hates the NFL.)

On Thanksgiving, she’s doing the same thing too, and enjoying herself. So there. The NFL on Thanksgiving may not always have the greatest matchups scheduled to play (dammit, Lions), but the tradition of bonding with loved ones over white meat turkey and Tony Romo interceptions is one of the top cultural achievements ever.

Sport: Misc.

Applicable to the NHL, MLB, and NBA. Game 7's are epic, and I shouldn't have to explain why. It's a win-or-die situation. Champions are crowned afterwards, sometimes. You get it.

Sport: Football

The Super Bowl is cool. Don’t get me wrong. But if you’ve already started your “fuck Complex” comment because of this ranking, sorry bruh, you’re fucking wrong. This last Super Bowl was one of the best in recent memory for a myriad of reasons, not all of which were football related (Money Lynch moves in silence). I can’t deny any of that. But the day of the Super Bowl has turned into the New Year’s Eve of the sports calendar. It’s A LOT, and we don’t even get work off the next day. Because the Super Bowl is biggest cultural convergence event in sports, the social aspect tied to the Super Bowl is massive. Like, IRL social, not #SuperBowl. There’s so much pressure to watch the game with people and “go out,” which means having to make plans with people, which means you’re already dead. New Year’s Eve sucks, and so does Super Bowl Sunday. That being said, the Super Bowl itself still rocks. The day is just a nightmare.

Sport: Basketball

You know when a news story hits Twitter and EVERYONE starts going in on it? When cracking jokes and making memes stands alongside real analysis, information sharing, and discourse? It's fantastic. Everything's fire, and you're inundated with connectivity. The first day of the men's NCAA Tournament is the basketball equivalent. Live streaming let's us watch any game from anywhere data can be transferred. When it's on, there's so much happening so quickly that maybe you start drooling at your desk in awe of its greatness...before your boss comes by to ruin shit.

Sport: Football

The optimism of the first NFL Sunday has only been matched in human history by Obama’s 2008 IT’S ALL GONNA CHANGE campaign. Every year, there’s at least one moment during that first NFL Sunday where you black out and envision this year’s version of your team going all the way. It’s the return of so much we love: Fantasy football, football food, football drinking levels, football friends, NFL Twitter—I could go on.

Sport: Football

This is the best date on the NFL calendar, which means it’s the best date on the sports calendar. The NFL is King in this country (futbol fans, fall back please), and Championship Sunday provides the an unmatched level of drama. For hours of play, the intensity, jubilation, and gut-wrenching anxiety reach critical heights. A trip to the fucking Super Bowl is on the line, guys. We’re talking eternal glory and the chance to bask in sports nirvana. Championship Sunday’s doubleheader from the AFC and NFC’s best is like having back-to-back Super Bowl-quality games, but without the well-established shittiness of Super Bowl Sunday.