Burgeoning Chicago-based prodco Playground Productions is bringing back iconic kids video game franchise Backyard Sports for a new generation of sports-obsessed fans and their nostalgia-craving parents.

Originally developed by Humongous Entertainment and published by Atari in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the franchise was hailed for featuring a large fictional cast of diverse kids with unique personalities, and for giving girls and boys the same athletic abilities in the games.

The first title in the franchise, Backyard Baseball, launched in 1997, followed by games for soccer, football, basketball and hockey. In 2001, the franchise teamed up with Major League Baseball to create kid versions of popular big-league stars such as Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson. Subsequent partners included Major League Soccer, the NBA, WNBA, NFL and NHL.

Backyard Sports began as a PC game, expanded to game consoles—including Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii—and eventually made its way to mobile devices in 2014.

After Humongous folded in 2005, the rights to the franchise changed hands a number of times before producers Ari Pinchot and Stuart Avi Savitsky acquired them in 2021. 

Pinchot and Savitsky are now working with Playground CEO Lindsay Barnett (who founded the kids and family content producer in 2022) and chief product officer Chris Waters to relaunch the franchise with new games in the coming months.

A wider plan is also in the works to develop Backyard Sports television and movie projects, create digital content and launch a consumer products program.

Although Playground is mum on specific details of the relaunch at this time, it is aiming to preserve the look and feel of the original games while also modernizing them with features and gameplay for today’s audiences, according to Waters.

The company has not yet revealed whether it plans to collaborate with professional sports leagues again, or if all of the new content is being made in-house or in partnership with third parties.