Barnstorm ( sports ) Barnstorming in athletics refers to sports teams or individuals that travel to various locations , usually small towns , to stage exhibition matches . Some barnstorming teams lack any home arena whatsoever , while other teams have been known to go on " barnstorming tours " in the off - season . Teams in baseball ' s Negro Leagues often barnstormed before , during and after their league ' s " regular season " . Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Satchel Paige barnstorm toured with Dempsey Hovland ' s Caribbean Kings . While barnstorming is no longer as popular as it was in the twentieth century , some teams such as basketball ' s Harlem Globetrotters , softball ' s King and His Court and Ice hockey ' s Buffalo Sabres Alumni Hockey Team carry on the tradition . In the 1990s the Colorado Silver Bullets women ' s baseball team resurrected barnstorming as there was no women ' s league in which to compete until the development of the WNBA basketball franchises . It was very common in the early days of professional football ; for instance , the Los Angeles Wildcats of the first American Football League of 1926 played the regular season as a traveling team , then went on a post - season barnstorming tour of Texas and California , with Red Grange and the New York Yankees as the designated opponent for most of these games . NFL teams were also known to barnstorm in small towns against local teams all the way up through World War II . Barnstorming teams differ from traveling team s in that barnstorming teams operate outside the framework of an established athletic league , while traveling teams ( also known as " road teams " ) are designated by a league , formally or informally , to be a designated visiting team for all , or almost all , of its league games . Numerous auto racers , most notably Barney Oldfield , staged exhibitions around the United States in the early twentieth century . Oldfield barnstormed against the aviator Lincoln Beachey at least 35 times in 1914 . Women ' s basketball . One of the most renowned national baseball and basketball barnstorm team owners Dempsey Hovland started his barnstorm career as a member and organizer of the barnstorming House of David in the 1930s . He was respected as an barnstorm icon : the only team owner to operate both male and female basketball teams and baseball teams . Hovland ' s world - famous Texas Cowgirls ( touring worldwide like the Trotters ) were the first female team to open on the men ' s professional basketball tours ( BAA , NBL and the NBA ) . The barnstorming female Texas Cowgirls also broke ground and opened for the Harlem Globetrotters in the 1950s and 1960s . The Texas Cowgirls originated in Chicago . The Texas Cowgirls were the first racially integrated female barnstorm basketball team ( 1949 – 1977 ) . The Redheads and Arkansas Travellers were two other well - known female basketball barnstorm teams , but did not accept integration . The New York Harlem Queens ( an African - American female basketball team , another Hovland team ) barnstormed against off - season NFL teams and the barnstorming Texas Cowgirls . The world famous Texas Cowgirls were invited to play U . S . service bases overseas by President John F . Kennedy . The team received an honorary ambassador award from Robert McNamara , United States Secretary of Defense 1961 - 1968 . CBS ' s Roger Mudd reported a feature on the team in 1974 . The colorful sports commentator Heywood Hale Broun travelled with the team . Barnstorming basketball was the opportunity for women to play men ' s rules against men . At halftime the females would show off their ball handling expertise . As an international barnstorm promoter Hovland carried barnstorm entertainers on the road tours to entertain at halftime .