Only the Olympics Can Match the Autumn Sports Overload

October brings the busiest time of the year for sports, and the multitude of choices might cause overload for the fan. It’s a plethora of choices on parallel with the amount of art displayed in the churches and museums of Flornence, Italy. When I visited the “flowering city on the Arno River,” I was amazed by how much marble and canvas had been aesthetically crafted across the city, the multitude of options made it hard to choose what I wanted to see it first and fit it all in the time I was allotted. That’s what it currently feels like as a sports fan in autumn, especially so on the weekend. The Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games bring the same kind of incessant excitement as sporting events take place pretty much the entire day, ever day, for two weeks straight. In Beijing, we saw that the vast difference in time zone gave us televised events at all hours of the day. In order to televise most of the sporting events taking place, you see all the NBC networks (MSNBC, CNBC etc.) carrying them. During the Olympics, sports is the lead on the news channels. Similarly, all the ESPN Networks (ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNClassic, ESPN360 etc.) are currently jam-packed with their live event schedules.

To handle the sports overload that this segment of the calendar year brings, it takes a city like Chicago with teams involved in all the major professional and collegiate sports. A great sports town like Chicago, that handles the huge number of current choices and events, is perfect for hosting the Olympic and Paralymipc Games, which include the same scenario.

Northwestern Alum and Olympic Gold-Medalist Matt Grevers, served as Grand Marshal for Northwestern University’s Homecoming. Grevers, who won the silver medal in the 100m backstroke at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and was a part of two Gold Medal winning relay teams, was also honored during the Homecoming football game.  I caught up with Grevers at Ryan Field’s Randy Walker Terrace after he just spent a couple hours signing autographs for hundreds of fans. “If you go to Bears, Cubs, Sox, Blackhawks games you realize there’s a certain intensity. These people really appreciate their sports, they LIVE through their sports, people are so passionate about it,” Grevers said. The Lake Forest, IL native also discussed the elite status that professional athletes possess in the Chicago area and how that carries over to the collegiate game. “Even the college level, the athletes walk around the community and receive great respect for that they’ve done,” Grevers stated.

Here’s what ESPN SportsCenter has to condense into their hour long broadcasts each weekend:

-The Major League Baseball playoffs…with day games as well as night games in the first round, it’s like an October version of March Madness, the action is constant. If your team isn’t in it, chances are one (or more) of your friends do have a team in the tourney.

-NBA basketball preseason begins. The preseason scrimmages lead us to regular season tip-off around Halloween. College basketball preseason, with its season opening “Midnight Madness” pep rallies occur in the middle of the tenth month as well. The commencing of b-ball season occurs at the exact same time that baseball is in its postseason. In other words, America’s main winter and summer games overlap at this time making it inherently unique.

-The NHL season begins in mid October, following a busy preseason that started in mid September. Ice Hockey gets going at a time when the weather is often still quite warm in most of the country. In other words, all four major sports often take place on the same day.

-College football hits intra-conference season. Although not an Olympic sport, these games are much more meaningful than the early season non conference tune ups. October Saturdays in the Midwest often mean Homecoming weekend and more outdoor sporting options than even the summer can possess. Sundays become even more exciting for many as the NFL is in midseason and the sports industry works over time on the weekends.

Chicago, the nation’s third largest media market has a sports media industry and venue infrastructure already in place to routinely promote and present the numerous sports entertainment options to both the fan and the consumer year round. The Second City smoothly handles this sports overload every year, which further demonstrates its ability to do the same as a prospective Olympic and Paralympic Games host.

“It is probably the number one sports-fan city in the world,” Grevers said.