Exhibition Game

An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or the team's rankings is either zero or otherwise greatly reduced. In team sports, matches of this type are often used to help coaches and managers select and condition players for the competitive matches of a league season or tournament. If the players usually play in different teams in other leagues, exhibition games offer an opportunity for the players to learn to work with each other. The games can be held between separate teams or between parts of the same team.

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. Several sports leagues hold all-star games to showcase their best players against each other, while other exhibitions games may pit participants from two different leagues or countries to unofficially determine who would be the best in the world. International competitions like the Olympic Games may also hold exhibition games as part of a demonstration sport. An exhibition game can also serve as a 'warm up match' for upcoming league or official matches.

Association football

In the early days of association football, friendlies were the most common type of match. However, with the development of The Football League in England in 1888, league and cup tournaments became the primary methods of competition. The significance of friendly matches thus declined since the 19th century: by 2000, national leagues were established in almost every country throughout the world, with local or regional leagues for lower-level teams.

Club football

Since the introduction of league football, most club sides play a number of friendlies before the start of each season (called pre-season friendlies). Friendly football matches are considered to be non-competitive and are only used to "warm up" players for a new season/competitive match. Some rules may be changed or experimented with (such as unlimited substitutions, which allow teams to play less experienced players). Frequently such games take place between a large club and nearby smaller clubs, such as those between Newcastle United and Gateshead.

Although most friendlies are simply one-off matches arranged between the clubs in which a certain amount is paid by the challenger club to the incumbent club, some teams do compete in short tournaments, such as the Emirates Cup, Teresa Herrera Trophy, International Champions Cup and the Amsterdam Tournament. Although these events may involve sponsorship deals, a trophy, and television broadcasts, there is little prestige attached to them. In addition, club teams may tour other continents as part of global branding campaigns.

International football

International teams also play friendlies, generally in preparation for the qualifying or final stages of major tournaments. This is essential, since national squads generally have much less time together in which to prepare. The biggest difference between friendlies at the club and international levels is that international friendlies mostly take place during club league seasons, not between them. 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.

International friendlies give team managers the opportunity to experiment with team selection and tactics before the tournament proper, and also allow them to assess the abilities of players they may potentially select for the tournament squad. Players can be booked in international friendlies, and can be suspended from future international matches based on red cards or accumulated yellows in a specified period. Caps and goals scored also count towards a player's career records. The results can play a part in affecting the country's FIFA ranking. In 2004, FIFA ruled that substitutions by a team be limited to six per match in international friendlies in response to criticism that such matches were becoming increasingly farcical with managers making as many as 11 substitutions per match. An international match loses its official status if this regulation is breached.

Matches in multinational football tournaments such as the King's Cup, the Kirin Cup, and the China Cup are usually considered international friendlies by FIFA.

Fundraising game

In the UK and Ireland, "exhibition match" and "friendly match" refer to two different types of games. The types described above as friendlies are not termed exhibition matches, all-star matches such as those held in the US Major League Soccer, Japan's J.League or South Korea's K League are called exhibition matches rather than friendly matches. A one-off match for charitable fundraising, usually involving one or two all-star teams, or a match held in honor of a player for contribution to his/her club, may also be described as exhibition matches but they are normally referred to as charity matches ( Soccer Aid, Team UNICEF etc.) and testimonial matches respectively.

Training game

A training game is generally a non-competitive football match played between two sides usually as part of a training exercise or to give players match practice. Managers may also use bounce games as an opportunity to observe a player in action before offering a contract. Usually these games are played on a training ground rather than in a stadium with no spectators in attendance.

Bandy

Before the establishment of the Bandy World Championship in 1957, annually held friendly games were the main events for national teams of the sport. International friendlies are still often held.

Boxing

Exhibition fights were once common in boxing. Jack Dempsey fought many exhibition bouts after retiring. Joe Louis fought a charity fight on his rematch with Buddy Baer, but this was not considered an exhibition as it was for Louis' world Heavyweight title, and as a championship fight, it counted on both boxers' records. Muhammad Ali fought many exhibitions, including one with Lyle Alzado. In more modern times, Mike Tyson, Julio César Chávez, Jorge Castro, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. have been involved in exhibition fights.

Although not fought for profit, amateur bouts (usually) and sparring sessions are not considered to be exhibition fights. On 25 August 2018, YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI had an exhibition match that ended in a draw. On 28 November 2020, Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. had a fight that ended in a draw.

Ice hockey

Prior to the 1917–18 NHL season, an exhibition game was played on 15 December, between the Montreal Canadiens and the Montreal Wanderers. The game was played as a benefit to aid victims of the Halifax explosion.

Under the 1995–2004 National Hockey League collective bargaining agreement, teams were limited to nine preseason games. From 1975 to 1991, NHL teams sometimes played exhibition games against teams from the Soviet Union in the Super Series, and in 1978, played against World Hockey Association teams also in preseason training. 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). Before the Vegas Golden Knights entered the NHL in 2017, the Kings would traditionally play an annual game known as Frozen Fury in Las Vegas in a partnership with the MGM Grand Las Vegas. The game is played today at Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah. Today, all teams must play six, seven, or eight preseason games. Each preseason game must have at least eight veterans dressed, except during the World Cup of Hockey. In the 1994–95 season and the 2012–13 season, no preseason games were played due to lockouts.

Since the 2000s, some preseason games have been played in Europe against European teams, as part of the NHL Challenge and NHL Premiere series. In addition to the standard preseason, there also exist prospect tournaments such as the Vancouver Canucks' YoungStars tournament and the Detroit Red Wings' training camp, in which NHL teams' younger prospects face off against each other under their parent club's banner.

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. Another prominent exhibition hockey team is the Buffalo Sabres Alumni Hockey Team, which is composed almost entirely of retired NHL players, the majority of whom (as the name suggests) played at least a portion of their career for the Buffalo Sabres.

American college hockey teams occasionally play exhibition games against Canadian college teams as well as against USA or Canadian national teams. (In men's hockey, the senior national teams are selected from NHL and other pro players, and college teams would be overmatched against those teams even if they were allowed to play them. However, the national under-18 teams are made up of amateurs, allowing college squads to play them.)

Baseball

The Major League Baseball's preseason is also known as spring training. All MLB teams maintain a spring-training base in Arizona or Florida. The teams in Arizona make up the Cactus League, while the teams in Florida play in the Grapefruit League. Each team plays about 30 preseason games against other MLB teams. They may also play exhibitions against a local college team or a minor-league team from their farm system. Some days feature the team playing two games with two different rosters evenly divided up, which are known as "split-squad" games.

Several MLB teams used to play regular exhibition games during the year against nearby teams in the other major league, but regular-season interleague play has made such games unnecessary. The two Canadian MLB teams, the Toronto Blue Jays of the American League and the Montreal Expos of the National League, met annually to contest the Pearson Cup; this tradition ended when the Expos moved to Washington DC for the 2005 season. Similarly, the New York Yankees played in the Mayor's Trophy Game against various local rivals from 1946 to 1983.

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. Exhibitions between inter-city teams in different leagues, like Chicago's Crosstown Classic and New York's Subway Series which used to be played solely as exhibitions for bragging rights are now blended into interleague play. The annual MLB All-Star Game, played in July between players from AL teams and players from NL teams, had long been considered an exhibition match, though between 2003 and 2016 this status was questioned because the league whose team won the All-Star game has been awarded home field advantage for the upcoming World Series (prior to 2003 the leagues alternated which one of them had home field advantage; starting in 2017 the team with the better regular season record would be given home field advantage).

Another exhibition game, the Hall of Fame Game/Classic which was played in Cooperstown, New York on the weekend of inductions to the Baseball Hall of Fame, was also ended in 2008 due to interleague play and teams playing only substitutes.

Basketball

Professional basketball

National Basketball Association teams usually play eight preseason games per year, with the number rarely being lower than seven. Today, NBA teams almost always play each other in the preseason but often at neutral sites within their market areas in order to allow those who can't usually make a trip to a home team's arena during the regular season to see a game close to home; for instance, the Minnesota Timberwolves will play games in arenas in North and South Dakota, while the Phoenix Suns schedule one exhibition game outdoors at Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells, California, yearly, the only such instance an NBA game takes place in an outdoor venue. Exhibition games have been also been held on occasion outside the US and Canada.

However, from 1971 to 1975, NBA teams played preseason exhibitions against American Basketball Association teams with the ABA winning the series 80 to 75 games. In the early days of the NBA, league clubs sometimes challenged the legendary barnstorming Harlem Globetrotters, with mixed success. The Minneapolis Lakers beat the Globetrotters seven games to one. The NBA has played preseason games in Europe and Asia. Beginning in 2015, the league has scheduled NBA Africa Game