Exhibition game
An exhibition game may also be used to settle a challenge, to provide professional entertainment, to promote the sport, to commemorate an anniversary or a famous player, or to raise money for charities.
Some rules may be changed or experimented with, such as unlimited substitutions (which allow teams to play less experienced players).
[citation needed] Since the 2000s, friendlies played in the United States have become increasingly lucrative for European teams.
International teams also play friendlies, generally in preparation for the qualifying or final stages of major tournaments.
This has on occasion led to disagreement between national associations and clubs as to the availability of players, who could become injured or fatigued in a friendly.
[12] Before the establishment of the Bandy World Championship in 1957, annually held friendly games were the main events for national teams of the sport.
In more modern times, Mike Tyson, Julio César Chávez, Jorge Castro, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. have been involved in exhibition fights.
[14] Under the 1995–2004 National Hockey League collective bargaining agreement, teams were limited to nine preseason games.
Like the NFL, the NHL sometimes schedules exhibition games for cities without their own NHL teams, often at a club's minor league affiliate (e.g. Carolina Hurricanes games at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, home of their AHL affiliate the Charlotte Checkers; Los Angeles Kings games at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California, home of their AHL affiliate the Ontario Reign; Montreal Canadiens games at Colisée Pepsi in Quebec City, which has no pro hockey but used to have an NHL team until 1995; Washington Capitals at 1st Mariner Arena in the Baltimore Hockey Classic; Buffalo Sabres at Pegula Ice Arena on the campus of owner Terrence Pegula's alma mater Penn State University; various Western Canada teams at Credit Union Centre in Saskatoon, a potential NHL expansion venue; and the St. Louis Blues in Kansas City, Missouri at T-Mobile Center, also a potential expansion venue that is currently considered part of the Blues' television market).
In 1992, goaltender Manon Rhéaume played in a preseason game for the Tampa Bay Lightning, becoming the first woman to suit up for an all-male pro sports team in North America.
The Flying Fathers, a Canadian group of Catholic priests, regularly toured North America playing exhibition hockey games for charity.
One of the organization's founders, Les Costello, was a onetime NHL player who was ordained as a priest after retiring from professional hockey.
[citation needed] It also used to be commonplace to have a team play an exhibition against Minor League affiliates during the regular season, but worries of injuries to players, along with travel issues, have made this very rare.
National Basketball Association teams usually play eight preseason games per year, with the number rarely being lower than seven.
In the early days of the NBA, league clubs sometimes challenged the legendary barnstorming Harlem Globetrotters, with mixed success.
The NFL has played exhibition games in Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia (including the American Bowl in 1999) and Mexico to spread the league's popularity (a game of this type was proposed for China but, due to financial and logistical problems, was eventually canceled).
The league has tacitly forbidden the playing of non-league opponents, with the last interleague game having come in 1972 between the NFL's New York Jets and the Seaboard Football League's Long Island Chiefs and the last game against a team other than an NFL team (the all-NFL rookie College All-Stars) was held in 1976.
The Arena Football League briefly had a two-game exhibition season in the early 2000s, a practice that ended in 2003 with a new television contract.
Intramural games are possible because a team playing against itself leaves little ability for poll participants to make judgments, and at levels below the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), championships are decided by objective formulas and thus those teams can play non-league games without affecting their playoff hopes.
High school football teams frequently participate in controlled scrimmages with other teams during preseason practice, but full exhibition games are rare because of league rules and concerns about finances, travel and player injuries, along with enrollments not being registered until the early part of August in most school districts under the traditional September–June academic term.
Another high school football exhibition contest is the all-star game, which usually brings together top players from a region.
Many of these games, which include the U.S. Army All-American Bowl and Under Armour All-America Game, are used as showcases for players to be seen by colleges and increase their college recruiting profile, or for athletes to confirm their choice and sign their National Letter of Intent outside of National Signing Day.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic leading to the cancellation of regular league play in many places, some teams scheduled exhibition games instead, including the Dresden Monarchs hosting the Wroclaw Panthers on September 20, 2020.
Australian rules football has been introduced to a wide range of places around Australia and the world since the code originated in Victoria in 1859.
Much of this expansion can be directly attributed to exhibition matches by the major leagues in regions and countries where the code has been played as a demonstration sport.
NASCAR has also held exhibition races at Suzuka Circuit and Twin Ring Motegi in Japan and Calder Park Thunderdome in Australia.
The National Hot Rod Association Pro Stock teams will have a preseason drag meet held before the traditional start in Pomona.
In sumo wrestling, official tournaments (honbasho) are held six times per year, in the cities of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and Fukuoka.
