--- title: The Year Ahead in Sports description: 2016 will be a big year on the playing field canonical: https://time.com/4157581/the-year-ahead-in-sports/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-21T19:46:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:33:54.990Z article:section: Sports og:title: The Year Ahead in Sports og:description: 2016 will be a big year on the playing field og:url: https://time.com/4157581/the-year-ahead-in-sports/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Year Ahead in Sports twitter:description: 2016 will be a big year on the playing field twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Year Ahead in Sports by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Dec 21, 2015 7:46 PM UTC by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Dec 21, 2015 7:46 PM UTC January 1/1 The Iowa Hawkeyes and the Stanford Cardinal go head-to-head in the 102nd Rose Bowl 1/1 The Boston Bruins face off outdoors against the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL’s Winter Classic 1/11 College Football National Championship 1/18 Grand Slam season begins for tennis at the Australian Open 1/31 NFL All-Stars visit Honolulu for the Pro Bowl February 2/7 Super Bowl 50 2/14 Pro basketball heads to Toronto for the NBA All-Star Game 2/21 NASCAR revs its engines at the Daytona 500 2/24 The X Games descend on Oslo March 3/13 The green flag waves for the IndyCar Series season 3/13 The NCAA’s Selection Sunday seeds 68 men’s basketball teams for March Madness 3/18 The NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament tips off 3/28 Competitors meet at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Boston April 4/2 The road to the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four ends in Houston 4/3 Opening Day of the MLB season 4/7 Golf’s major season tees off with the Masters Tournament 4/9 College ice hockey’s Frozen Four concludes 4/9 The NHL regular season ends 4/18 Thousands of runners participate in the 120th Boston Marathon 4/28 The NFL drafts its newest players May 5/7 Horse-racing fans put on their finest for the Kentucky Derby 5/22 Red clay flies at Roland Garros for the French Open 5/29 The year’s most famous car race takes place at the Brickyard of the Indianapolis 500 June 6/2 The Women’s College World Series for softball returns to Oklahoma City 6/10 Soccer’s UEFA European Championship kicks off 6/23 NBA Draft 6/27 Pop the champagne: Wimbledon is back July 7/2 The Tour de France pedals off 7/4 Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest 7/9 The UFC 200 in Las Vegas is likely a Ronda Rousey–Holly Holm rematch 7/12 Baseball’s best head to San Diego for the All-Star Game August 8/5 Athletes compete for gold at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro 8/29 Tennis’ U.S. Open begins September 9/8 The NFL season kicks off 9/30 Europe’s best golfers take on America’s finest in the Ryder Cup October 10/2 MLB teams play their final regular-season games 10/23 Formula One’s United States Grand Prix revs through Austin November 11/6 New York City Marathon 11/24 The Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys play in the NFL’s traditional Thanksgiving Day games December 12/6 Competitors race at the FINA World Swimming Championships 12/31 College football’s Peach Bowl and Fiesta Bowl Compiled by Megan McCluskey ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4157581/the-year-ahead-in-sports/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4157581/the-year-ahead-in-sports/"},"headline":"The Year Ahead in Sports","datePublished":"2015-12-21T19:46:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:33:54.990Z","description":"2016 will be a big year on the playing field","url":"https://time.com/4157581/the-year-ahead-in-sports/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Sports","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/sports/","name":"Sports"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4157581/the-year-ahead-in-sports/","name":"The Year Ahead in Sports"}}]}] ```