History Main / SportsWidow

* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' of Creator/AAPessimal sees [[DraftDodger Heidi van Kruger]] settle the issue of ''not'' doing her National Service, once and for all, by marrying Danie Smith-Rhodes. [[note]]Married women are exepmt from conscription; in a conservative society, marriage and the promise of motherhood are seen as acceptable reasons not to be drafted[[/note]]. Danie, however, on emigrating to Ankh-Morpork, found ''his'' community among like-minded [[AmoralAfrikaner expatriots]], in the bros and the okes of [[RugbyIsSlaughter fifteen-a-side foot-and-hand-the-ball]]. Heidi accepts that on Saturday afternoons and training sessions, the Springboeks come first. Danie is seen reflecting on the inconvenient fact that women, for reasons known only to themselves, have a distressing habit of scheduling weddings to happen on Saturdays. He is seen wondering if he can persuade her to have the wedding first thing in the morning, so as to have his afternoon free for the game. He considers this a wholly reasonable thing to ask for. Her reaction is not recorded.

* Similarly, this 1984 UsefulNotes/{{Sony}} ad for their [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-F-e6Xtf_c Trinitron TV sets]]; with the husband watching the game with his friends on the Trinitron while his wife and kids are stuck watching a set that based on the very poor picture and the son having to adjust the antenna constantly is clearly on its last legs.

The term is usually written as sport-specific - "football widow", for example. And can be extended to any fanatical hobby that the spouse doesn't share, such as "gaming widow" for TabletopGames or "[=WoW=] widow" for ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. Compare the CoolGirl, who will often demonstrate her coolness by strongly averting this trope and being a huge sports fan.

The term is usually written as sport-specific - "football widow", for example. And can be extended to any fanatical hobby that the spouse doesn't share, such as "gaming widow" for TabletopGames or "[=WoW=] widow" for ''WorldOfWarcraft''. Compare the CoolGirl, who will often demonstrate her coolness by strongly averting this trope and being a huge sports fan.

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The term is usually written as sport-specific - "football widow", for example. And can be extended to any fanatical hobby that the spouse doesn't share, such as "gaming widow" for TabletopGames or "[=WoW=] widow" for ''WorldOfWarcraft''.

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* Nikki & John Pranksters in Love: Nikki is a victim of this in the gaming sense when John is playing video games on his X-Box. Naturally, this is the basis of numerous pranks by her to him. She destroyed his X-Box with a baseball bat, then switched out his new X-Box's hard drive with a new one to make him think she deleted everything on it, and then hid his copy of [[ModernWarfare Modern Warfare 3]] a day after it came out in stores.

* Not exactly this but [[MarriedWithChildren Al Bundy]] has a specific way of spending his holidays - totally isolating himself in front of TV. Otherwise he might snap.

* Both versions of ''FeverPitch''. In both cases, the female lead starts falling for the male lead, who completely changes personas when Arsenal/the Boston Red Sox season starts.

* Several of DaveBarry's columns illustrate this phenomenon. In one of the illustrated ones, two bar patrons angrily yell at the owner to change the channel back to the sports game instead of the young woman prancing around in her underwear.

* Cindy and the other club wives in ''Webcomic/LarryLeadhead'', who are in various degrees resigned to coming second to their husbands' obsessions with toy soldiers and models.

* ''{{Futurama}}'' flips the genders. Fry's mother is a hardcore Packers fan, and his father is too busy preparing for the latest conspiracy to give a damn what ''anyone'' else is doing.

* Cindy and the other club wives in ''LarryLeadhead'', who are in various degrees resigned to coming second to their husbands' obsessions with toy soldiers and models.

The term is usually written as sport-specific - "football widow", for example. And can be extended to any fanatical hobby that the spouse doesn't share, such as "gaming widow" for TabletopGames.

* ''HomeImprovement'': Jill knew that Tim was basically useless when the Detroit Lions were playing.
* ''SexAndTheCity'': One of Samantha's Guys of the Week would refuse to have sex while his basketball team was playing. Sam tried to indulge his fandom, but when he turned out to have a team for every season, she walked away.
* In one episode of ''MyNameIsEarl'', the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Karmic Restitution of the Week]] is fixing a relationship Earl ruined by making a guy obsessed with golf and getting dumped after turning his partner into a golf widow.
* ''TheLeague'': Ruxin's wife Sofia knows to leave him alone when he and the rest of the league show up to watch. Averted by Kevin and Jenny: she's a bigger football fan (and better team owner) than he is.
* Ricky and Fred on ''ILoveLucy'' get this way when watching a boxing match on television.

* In ''DamnYankees'', Meg laments that she loses her husband to the Washington Senators "six months out of every year." Her voice is joined by a chorus of other baseball widows (and their umpire-berating husbands).

A man's life stops when his team is playing. The children could be {{running with scissors}} or playing with matches, but the father is completely oblivious to anything but whether the umpire's call is fair (and whether the mother can get him a beer in time). The girlfriend could walk in front of the TV in the most stripperiffic lingerie known to man, but all the guy wants is for her to get out of the way so he can see the instant replay of the game-winning one-handed catch.

* ''TheLeague'': Ruxin's wife Sofia knows to leave him alone when he and the rest of the titular league show up to watch. Averted by Kevin and Jenny: she's a bigger football fan (and better team owner) than he is.