If you remove its glossy sponsor's title, the NAB Challenge is just a series of 27 practice matches (three per AFL team) prior to the start of the premiership season on April 2. The Challenge replaced the NAB Cup (previously the Fosters Cup, Ansett Australia Cup and Wizard Home Loans Cup) for the 2014 season, marking the end of a night/pre-season competition which dated  to 1956.

The pre-season competition was scrapped primarily to allow for greater fixturing certainty for teams, with a set schedule of matches determined months in advance, allowing clubs to prepare better for round one. The NAB Cup was also widely considered irrelevant, with coaches, players and fans considering it to be of negligible importance compared to the premiership season.

That this series is labelled a "challenge" has more to do with the appeasement of one of the AFL's major sponsors than any prestige surrounding the games. Old habits die hard, though, and plenty in the football industry have erroneously called the series the NAB Cup in recent weeks, including Western Bulldogs key forward Tom Boyd at Monday's NAB Challenge launch.

When is it being held?

The NAB Challenge begins on Thursday night in Launceston as reigning premiers Hawthorn take on Collingwood. The first 18 games will be staggered over three weekends, six this weekend followed by six more on each of the following two weekends. During this time, all 18 clubs will play two games, predominantly at regional and suburban venues, highlighted this weekend by the Western Bulldogs' clash with Richmond at the Whitten Oval on Saturday afternoon. The final round of nine matches will be played over a single weekend between March 19 and 22, with games returning to mainstream AFL grounds.

Is it on TV?

None of the matches will be shown on free-to-air TV, however 21 of the 27 games will be broadcast live nationally on Fox Footy. The other six will not even be streamed. Four games in each of the first three weeks will be televised, as will all of the final round of nine. That means bad news for St Kilda, Brisbane Lions, North Melbourne and Adelaide fans this weekend, with no TV coverage of their games.

What about radio?

Most games will be live on SEN, with some also on 3AW, the ABC, Triple M and K-Rock. Every encounter can be listened to via the AFL website.

What's with the Essendon controversy?

Even though the games are only practice matches, they are sanctioned by the AFL. That means that any of the 34 provisionally suspended current and former Essendon players involved in the AFL anti-doping tribunal case risk losing a backdated suspension by playing in the games. Therefore Port Adelaide's Paddy Ryder and Angus Monfries, Western Bulldogs forward Stewart Crameri, and 17 Dons players will bypass the series unless a decision is handed down in their favour prior to its completion. An additional eight Bombers from the club's 2012 list will sit out of the NAB Challenge in order to preserve their teammates' anonymity. The Bombers will be using top-up players from state leagues, some of whom are former AFL players.

Are there any funky rules?

Four field umpires will be trialled during the first three weeks of the series, with teams also given unlimited rotations during those games before the final round is played under home-and-away conditions (an interchange cap of 120), while for the 13th year in a row, goals kicked from beyond the 50-metre arc will be worth nine points in the pre-season.

Two new rule interpretations for the 2015 season proper will also be in place during the NAB Challenge: a stricter holding-the-ball rule, and tighter adjudication against blocking in marking contests.