The National Football League exhibition season refers to the period each year during which NFL teams play several not-for-the-record exhibition games before the actual "championship" or "regular" season starts. Beginning with the featured Pro Football Hall of Fame game in early August, five weekends of exhibition games are currently played in the NFL. The start of the exhibition season is intrinsically tied to the last week of training camp.
Exhibition season
Each summer has most NFL teams playing four exhibition games (referred to by the NFL as "preseason games;" the league discourages the use of the term "exhibition game") from early August through early September. The Hall of Fame game is played first in front of a national television audience, the only game on the first weekend. It does not count toward the normal allotment of four games, therefore the two teams playing in that contest (usually one from the American Football Conference and one from the National Football Conference) each play a total of five exhibition games.
The games are useful for new players who are not used to playing in front of very large crowds. Management often uses the games to evaluate newly signed players. Veteran players will generally play only for about a quarter of each game in order to avoid injury. Thus, first-stringers' playing time is kept brief in the exhibition season, and in fact players are not paid their regular salaries for exhibitions, but the same per diem which they receive for training camp. The exhibition game tickets, however, are the usually same price as for regular-season games. Several lawsuits, by individual fans or by class action, have been brought against specific teams or the entire NFL over the practice of requiring season-ticket holders to purchase exhibition games. To date, none of these suits has been successful.
History
Exhibition games have been played in Professional Football since the 1920s. In the early years of the sport, teams often "barnstormed", and played squads from leagues outside their own, or against local college teams or other amateur groups, charging fans whatever the traffic would bear. These games might be played before, during or after the teams' regular seasons. The quality of the sport during this period was such that there was not much to be seen different in an exhibition game or a regularly-scheduled game. But the players were just as competitive, and the fans demanded their money's worth. The only restriction was a major one: all games played against league opponents were considered regular season games, meaning only games played against teams from outside the league could be considered true exhibitions (the Staley Swindle of 1921 was one notable implementation of this rule, which ended up impacting who won the championship that year).
By the 1960s, teams in both the NFL and the American Football League began playing exhibition games toward the end of training camp and before the regular season, to acclimate players to game conditions. These games were priced well below the cost for regular-season games, and in some cases were "intrasquad" games, in which both offense and defense were made up of home-team players. Team owners realized modest profits from these games, because the players were still being paid only training camp per diem, so any game proceeds went strictly to management.
With the AFL-NFL merger of 1970, Professional Football was granted a Sherman Anti-Trust Act exemption, which emboldened some team owners to expand the exhibition schedule and to require season-ticket holders to pay for one, then two, then three home exhibition games if they wanted to keep their season tickets. The exhibition season then became, and remains, a large source of owner revenue that is not shared with the players. For several years through 1977, the NFL season consisted of 14 regular season games and six exhibition games, usually three at home and three away, with some played at neutral sites. Starting in 1978, the regular season was expanded to 16 games, and the exhibition season was cut from six to four games.
From 1999 to 2001, when the league consisted of an uneven 31 teams, some additional exhibition games (usually 2 or 3) were played over Hall of Fame weekend. In order to account for the uneven number of teams, each team was required to have a bye week during the exhibition season. Most teams held their bye week in Hall of Fame weekend, while the others utilized them somewhere else during the exhibition season. This practice was abandoned after the Houston Texans were added to the league in 2002, giving it an even 32 teams.
The exhibition games do not count toward any statistics, streaks, season standings or records whatsoever. For instance, the four wins incurred by the 2008 Detroit Lions in the exhibition season did not count "against them" when they went on to become the first team to lose all of their regular-season games since 1976, and the 1972 Dolphins, despite losing three exhibition games, are still considered to have played a perfect season. Similarly, Ola Kimrin's 65-yard field goal in an exhibition game is not considered the league record, despite being longer than the 63 yard mark set by Tom Dempsey and later by Jason Elam in the regular season.
Still, Professional Football is popular enough that many fans still pay full price for exhibition game tickets, which they must purchase in order to keep their regular-season seats. Many teams are sold out on a season ticket basis and have large waiting lists, with fans required to pay a one-time or annual fee for the privilege of remaining on the waiting list. A minority of teams offer promotions and discounts to fill the stands for exhibition games; an example of this is the Buffalo Bills' annual "Kids Day" promotion, where tickets, already the lowest priced in the league, are slashed to bargain-basement prices (around $10) for children under 12.
International and neutral-site games
Prior to the commencement of the International Series, the NFL had another "featured" exhibition game called the American Bowl. This matchup was a "fifth" exhibition game for the two teams involved and was (often) played on the same weekend as the Hall of Fame Game. It was played outside the United States, usually in Mexico or Japan; in the latter case, it often involved games that started at 5:00 A.M. U.S. Eastern time. The American Bowl was held from 1986 to 2005; similar international matches had occurred regularly since 1969.
In addition, teams will often play home games at stadiums on the fringes of their markets, or in markets not currently served by NFL teams. San Antonio, Texas's Alamodome hosted games in this way, as has the Home Depot Center in Carson, California (outside Los Angeles, with the San Diego Chargers being the home team) and the Rogers Centre (as part of the Bills Toronto Series). The Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York has been mentioned as a potential site for such a game, with the host team not yet mentioned.
Television and radio
Although several exhibition games are broadcast nationally, most are broadcast by local television stations and produced by the teams themselves. Exhibition games are almost exclusively played at night due to hot summer weather, and are frequently scheduled based on local convenience (e.g. games on the west coast tend to start at 7:00 p.m. PT/10:00 p.m. ET). The league's blackout restrictions apply, although stations are allowed to play the game on a tape delay if the game does not sell out (unlike the regular season policy, when rights revert to NFL Films). Many more exhibition games fail to sell out than do regular-season games.
NFL Network airs many exhibition games on tape delay using local broadcasters' game broadcasts, in addition to a weekly live game using its own crew. When airing the local broadcasters' games, NFL Network will split the footage between each team's home market by half, with the home team having the first half and the visiting team having the second half. For instance, if the Cleveland Browns were playing an exhibition game with the Detroit Lions in Cleveland (the two often play each other in the preseason due to it being an interconference matchup plus the close proximity to Cleveland and Detroit, see below), NFL Network would air the Browns' local coverage in the first half (in this case, WKYC-TV), and then air the second half coverage from the Lions local broadcaster, WWJ-TV.
Local radio stations have conflicts with Baseball games. Example of this The Cleveland Browns play Green Bay Packers, that game is broadcasted on 100.7 WMMS because the Cleveland Indians could be playing a game against the Chicago White Sox and that game is on WTAM AM 1100.
With the exception of the Hall of Fame Game, which is carried by Westwood One, there is no national radio play-by-play of exhibition games. Furthermore, the games are still carried by the teams' local radio networks, but the affiliate count is reduced due to conflict with baseball and local sports as well as reduced demand because of the generally low qualty of the contests. Television viewers are not required to watch exhibition games in order to later view regular-season games. Despite this, the league's subscription FieldPass still charges full price for Internet audio of these games.
Matchups
Unlike the regular season, the exhibition matchups are not based on any rotating or set formula.
The NFL schedules the matchups for all of the exhibition games. Since 2002, individual teams have been allowed to negotiate their own deals to play each other during the preseas
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