There are many sports and other events that are contested, but why are some contests called matches, like tennis match, golf match, and soccer match, and some contests called a game, like baseball game and football game? It's not a baseball match, or a tennis game, so is there a rule of English that differentiates a match from a game?.
Learn English – What determines whether a sporting event is a game, match, contest, or something else
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Best Answer
"Match" sports tend to be the ones that originated in the UK or other Commonwealth countries. Consider:
The sport where players kick a round ball around a field is a bit of a special case: it's a football match in the UK, but a soccer game in the US. Since the US didn't import the name, apparently it didn't import the "match" terminology either, and the homegrown "game" tradition got applied to it.