About

Backyard Sports is a franchise of sports video games created by Humongous Entertainment that was mostly popular in the late '90s and 2000s. The franchise features a recurring cast of animated children playing various sports alongside child versions of professional athletes corresponding to the sport showcased in each game. While the most well-known of these is arguably the Backyard Baseball series, other sports including football, soccer and basketball have been featured in the franchise. Backyard Sports was largely dormant in the 2010s and early 2020s, but in late August 2024, Playground Productions announced they were reviving the franchise. Online, the franchise has been widely cited as a source of nostalgia, particularly for many millennials.

History

Backyard Sports originated with Backyard Baseball, which was developed by Humongous Entertainment and released for PC on October 10th, 1997.^[1] In the initial game, the cast was entirely made of original characters, all preteen children. In subsequent installments, child versions of professional athletes were added to the cast.

The Backyard series of games took a stylized, cartoonish approach to sports video games, allowing players to use unrealistic athletic maneuvers, like super-powered pitches and various other powerups across the series. Many games in the franchise were released in the 2000s, but the franchise went mostly dormant in the 2010s, save for two mobile releases in 2015.

Revival Announcement

On August 20th, 2024, Playground Productions announced it would be relaunching the franchise and expanding it to include "multiple verticals such as film, television, merchandise."^[2] The same day, a trailer for the relaunch was uploaded to YouTube (shown below), where it gained over 6,500 views in a matter of hours. The website backyardsports.com^[3] was also launched.

Online Presence

The Backyard Sports franchise became a source of nostalgia in the roughly 14 years it was dormant. On YouTube, multiple Let's Plays and video essays about the series have garnered millions of views each.

For example, on August 20th, 2021, the YouTube channel Not The Expert uploaded gameplay of the 1997 original Backyard Baseball and gained over 1.3 million views in three years (shown below, left). On December 21st, 2022, YouTuber ryancreamertwitch made a video parodying the film Moneyball by crafting a Backyard Baseball roster with its principles, gaining over 719,000 views in 18 months (shown below, right).

In January 2024, Travis and Jason Kelce discussed on their podcast a desire to restart the franchise using their wealth from football (shown below).

Related Memes

Pablo Sanchez

Pablo Sanchez is a fictional character from the Backyard Sports video game series. He is best known as an elite slugger in the Backyard Baseball series, growing so notable that he is still remembered as an extremely powerful video game athlete to this day.

Search Interest

External References