The clip is 42 seconds long and looks like something out of a children’s cartoon from the late 1990s or early 2000s. Kids from all over the neighborhood gather at the local baseball stadium and get ready to “play ball” in a colorful animation.
But for a generation of Millennial and Gen Z sports fans who grew up playing “backyard sports” video games, these aren’t just any kids. That’s elite pitcher Stephanie Morgan, flashing her trademark screwball and bubble-gum pop. That’s Achmed Khan and Pete Wheeler joining her. That’s hitter Kiesha Phillips, mad scientist Dmitri Petrovich, twins Tony and Angela Delvecchio and streaker Kenny Kawaguchi joining the fray before Morgan locks eyes with the legend himself – Pablo Sanchez.
(Related: Top 10 Sports Video Game Characters: Where Does Pablo Sanchez Rank?)
Backyard Sports is returning after a nearly decade-long hiatus, developer Playground Productions announced Tuesday. The 42-second trailer, reminiscent of the flagship video game series “Backyard Baseball,” immediately went viral after its release on social media.
“We are incredibly happy Backyard sports for a new generation of gamers,” said Chris Waters, chief product officer at Playground Productions, in a statement to Sports Illustrated. “We’re committed to preserving the look and feel that made the original games so special, while updating them with modern features and gameplay that today’s audiences expect. I can’t wait to show fans what we’re building at Playground.”
According to Variety, the return of the cult video game series is not the only Backyard Sports project the developer is working on; forays into film, television and expanded merchandise are also planned.
At its peak between its debut in 1997 and the mid-2000s, Backyard Sports offered video games for every major professional sport, including Backyard Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey, and Soccer, with the first two games being the most popular. Playground Productions eventually signed licensing deals with virtually every major American professional sports league, including MLB, NBA, WNBA, NFL, NHL, and MLS, featuring child versions of real star athletes.
It’s unclear which titles are returning in the relaunch, but an illustration used in advertising for Backyard Sports surfaced on Tuesday, showing characters holding a football, a basketball, a baseball glove, a soccer ball and a hockey stick, suggesting a total revival of the entire product line.
The games’ popularity waned as their initial user base grew older and a shift from two-dimensional to three-dimensional graphics failed to attract new fans, while hyper-realistic sports video games from EA Sports and 2K Studios emerged. Playground Productions has not released a Backyard Sports video game for consoles since 2010, although versions of Backyard Baseball and Backyard Basketball were released for iOS and Android in 2015.
But the games remained in the cultural zeitgeist in many ways. Sanchez regularly appears on lists ranking the most iconic sports video game characters, often as the only fictional person on the list. Former Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Jason Kelce also caused a stir in January when he revealed on his hit podcast “New Heights” with his brother and Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce that he had inquired about who owned the rights to the Backyard Sports games the brothers played as kids to see if he could acquire and remake the games.
None of the Kelce brothers are directly involved in this relaunch, which is being handled by the same company, Playground Productions, that produced the first series of games. But it’s likely that the Kelces will be the first to get the “Backyard” treatment when “Backyard Football” returns.
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