Ok, so we know that are fans are going to be engaged for most of Saturday, Sunday and Monday of football season. Let’s talk about the structure of the season and what you can do to make it more manageable.
NFL Football is divided into the following structure:
Pre-Season – begins in August and runs through the first game of regular season. Pre-season consists of warm-up games pairing teams that do not always play together. This is also when team rosters are finalized.
Regular Season – beginning on September 10th this year and will end on January 3rd of 2010
Play-offs – begins after the last regular season game. This is when the best teams from each division play each other to determine who will go to the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl – the last game of the season; the winner is the champion of all of the NFL for the year. The Super Bowl will be held on February 7th, 2010 in Miami Florida.
Post Season – After the Super Bowl is over or after your fan’s team plays it’s last game… depends what you read whether the post season begins at playoffs or not. For our reality, the post season begins when our fans no longer have football to watch.
College Football is divided into the following structure:
Pre-Season – There is no pre-season in College Division I football, yet… check this out.. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/239602-college-football-pre-season-does-it-make-sense
Regular Season – 12 games, begins September 3rd ends Dec 5th
Bowls: Begin after December 5th
National Championship game: last game of the college football year. It won’t be scheduled until later in the season.
So basically, strap yourself in folks, you are going to be in football mode from now until February 8th, 2010.
Now let’s focus on how you can best prepare for a happy season. I recommend a pre-season planning date. My fan and I pull out our planners, my fan brings the NFL and SEC schedules, I bring our social calendar. We order in. I have a bottle of my favorite wine; my fan has his favorite scotch or bourbon. We discuss the plan for the season. My fan let’s me know about the non-negotiable football game dates. I let my fan know about the non-negotiable social and personal dates. We determine our football free date nights/days. I require a break from football (i.e. no restaurants with a TV), with quality face time at least once every week or two. During regular season (NFL and College) you can generally plan non-football nights on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday.
If this is your first or fiftieth season together, this planning date is also a great time to review the preferred rules of engagement during football season. Ask your fan about what they enjoy and don’t enjoy about sharing football season with you. Tell your fan what you enjoy and don’t enjoy about sharing football season with them. Talk jovially about pet peeves, for my fan, it drives him crazy when I bring up non-game related topics in the middle of critical plays.
The planning date is also a great time to get to know more about your fan’s passion. When did they fall in love with football? What was their first live game? What was the best game they ever watched? What stadium would they like to visit?
The planning date is critical to a happy football season in my home. We usually have a great time and bring in the new season on a happy, well planned note. I hope that you try it with your fan and let me know how it goes.
Don’t forget to recognize one of the “essential” tools of the serious football fan – a pocket sized TV for watching the game during wedding receptions. Woe to the unknowing bride who plans to wed the day of the Iron Bowl!
It was hard for me to get over the “rudeness” of bringing that to a wedding, and truth be told, I still think it’s beyond tacky. However, I’m sure your fan as well as mine, have some sort of device squirreled away for just such “emergencies”. You can always tell the prepared fan by the group of men huddled around his at social engagements.
Now that the season has started, I thought it was notable to inform you that our first football “disagreement” of the season was over whether or not Florida would be as formidable a foe next year after Tebow graduates. It was heated, and we agreed to disagree, but I figured you’d think it was funny. Who knew the “country Reese Witherspoon” could argue football like that? Just picture me drinking a canned Budweiser in a sparkly hot pink trucker hat