Posted by It’s been one of my favorite trivia questions. The traditional answer has been the day before and the day after the MLB All Star game. I’ve never seen the answer challenged either in print or when talked about. But I recently realized that I, along with the rest of the sporting public, have been intellectually lazy and not thought through the real answer.Â
What are the only days with no NFL, MLB, NHL, or NBA games? – There are 6 in 2010:
- The day before and after the MLB All Star game
- The two days after the MLB season ends
- Christmas Eve
- The day after the NBA All Star Game
The two days after the MLB season ends
This year, the MLB season ended on October 3rd, and the playoffs didn’t begin until the 6th. That left the 4th and 5th without an MLB game. The NFL didn’t play that day, and the NBA and NHL seasons hadn’t started yet. Those were two very long days.
Now, some may count preseason NBA, which was going on at the time, but that hardly counts as a major sporting event.
Last year, the NHL season started a week earlier, so sports fans had some relieft. Not this year. Had the Padres held on at the end of the MLB season, these two days would have been filled with tiebreaker baseball, but alas.
Christmas Eve
This year there will be no joy on Christmas Eve. Since it lands on a Friday, there will be no football played, and the NBA and NHL are off. We will be forced to spend time with our families.
Christmas Eve sometimes has NFL games played, depending on the calendar.
Olympics-driven scheduling
This year there were no sports on February 15th due to the Olympics (no NHL) and it being the day after the NBA All Star game (off day). This won’t happen next year, and probably will not happen in future Olympics – just a one-time scheduling quirk.