''Backyard Sports'' (originally branded as ''Junior Sports'') is a video game series released for consoles, computers and mobile devices. The series is best known for starring kid-sized versions of popular professional sports stars, such as

Albert Pujols José Alberto Pujols Alcántara () (); born January 16, 1980) is a Dominican-American former professional baseball first baseman, designated hitter and third baseman who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Nicknamed "The Machi ...

Paul Pierce Paul Anthony Pierce (born October 13, 1977) is an American former professional basketball player. He played 19 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), predominantly with the Boston Celtics. He was most recently an analyst on ESPN ...

Barry Bonds Barry Lamar Bonds (born July 24, 1964) is an American former professional baseball left fielder who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Bonds was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1986 to 1992 and the San Francisco Giants f ...

Tim Duncan Timothy Theodore Duncan (born April 25, 1976) is an American former professional basketball player. Nicknamed "the Big Fundamental", he is widely regarded as the greatest power forward of all time and one of the greatest players in NBA histor ...

Clint Mathis Clint Mathis (born November 25, 1976) is an American former professional soccer player who played as a forward or midfielder. He appeared at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, scoring one goal. He also played in Major League Soccer for the MetroStars, w ...

Kevin Garnett Kevin Maurice Garnett ( ; born May 19, 1976) is an American former professional basketball player who played for 21 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed KG by his initials, and the "Big Ticket" for his emphatic dunki ...

Tom Brady Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. (born August 3, 1977) is an American football quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL). He spent his first 20 seasons with the New England Patriots organization, with whic ...

David Ortiz David Américo Ortiz Arias (born November 18, 1975), nicknamed "Big Papi", is a Dominican-American former designated hitter (DH) and first baseman in Major League Baseball who played in the American League (AL) from 1997 to 2016, primarily wit ...

Joe Thornton Joseph Eric Thornton (born July 2, 1979) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre who is currently an unrestricted free agent. He has previously played for the Boston Bruins, San Jose Sharks, Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers of th ...

and Andy Macdonald. The ''Backyard Sports'' series is licensed by the major professional U.S. sports leagues:

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL) ...

(MLB), the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...

(NBA), the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

(NFL), the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...

(NHL), and

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Cana ...

(MLS). The series includes '' Backyard Baseball'', '' Backyard Basketball'', ''

Backyard Football :''This article describes the video game. For the underlying sport, see Street football (American)''. ''Backyard Football'' is a series of video games for various systems. The series was developed by Humongous Entertainment and published by Inf ...

'' (

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

), '' Backyard Soccer'', ''

Backyard Hockey ''Backyard Hockey ''is an ice hockey video games series created by Humongous Entertainment and Mistic Software that was published by Atari and Infogrames. It was first released in October 2002 for Microsoft Windows. Additional titles were relea ...

'' (

Ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...

), and ''Backyard Skateboarding''. In the games, players form a team consisting of Backyard Kids and pro players, which they take through a "Backyard League" season, attempting to become the champions. Players can create their athletes, starting in

(1999). Another aspect of the games is the use of Power-Ups, allowing players to gain "super-abilities". For instance, "Super Dunk" allows a basketball player to make a dunk from nearly anywhere on the court, "Leap Frog" allows a football player to jump over the entire defensive line, and "Ice Cream Truck" causes the other team to be distracted for a brief period. Some of these games are playable with the

ScummVM Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a set of game engine recreations. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system, it also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companie ...

emulator.

History

The series began in late 1997 when

Humongous Entertainment Humongous Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Bothell, Washington. Founded in 1992, the company is best known for developing multiple edutainment franchises, most prominently '' Putt-Putt'', ''Freddi Fish'', ''Pajama ...

, owned by

GT Interactive GT, Gt or G-T may refer to: Arts and entertainment Games * GT Interactive, an American video game developer * GameTrailers, a video game website * ''Golden Tee Golf'', golf video game * Gran Turismo (series), ''Gran Turismo'' (series), a series ...

, created the first game in the franchise: '' Backyard Baseball''. Later, GT Interactive was purchased by

Infogrames Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA) is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive#Infogrames subsidiary, Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. (1993–present), Atari, Inc. It ...

allowed

to expand the series, and Humongous developed more titles such as '' Backyard Soccer'', ''

'', ''Backyard Skateboarding'', '' Backyard Basketball'' and ''

''. Following the buyout by

, these titles from the ''Backyard'' series were released for game consoles, including the

GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the W ...

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...

, PlayStation 2,

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

, and

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...

. Infogrames in North America eventually changed its name to Atari Interactive. In July 2013, private equity firm The Evergreen Group bought the ''Backyard Sports'' franchise during the Atari bankruptcy proceedings for its portfolio company Epic Gear LLC. It was later sold by Epic Gear to Day6 Sports Group. In December 2014, Day6 Sports Group began to relaunch of the ''Backyard Sports'' series with ''Backyard Sports NBA Basketball'' for smartphones and tablets, with Golden State Warriors point guard

Stephen Curry Wardell Stephen Curry II ( ; born March 14, 1988) is an American professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, ...

as the cover athlete. In 2016, Day6 Sports Group was acquired by European investment group. In April 2019, Humongous Entertainment tweeted an image of the original ''Junior Sports'' logo, hinting at a possible re-release of the original games and/or the developer having re-secured the rights to the series proper. However a week prior, Humongous replied to a Twitter post saying they didn't own the rights to the franchise.

Games in the series

Film

In 2016,

Cross Creek Pictures Cross Creek Pictures is an American film production studio formed in 2009 by Timmy Thompson, Tyler Thompson and Brian Oliver. Its first production was the acclaimed '' Black Swan'' (2010), which was followed by '' The Ides of March'' (2011), ''Th ...

and Crystal City Entertainment were developing a film based on ''Backyard Sports'' with producers Brian Oliver and Ari Daniel Pinchot.

References

External links

* (2007 archive on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and s ...

) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Backyard Sports Series Video game franchises Humongous Entertainment games Infogrames games Atari games Fantasy sports video games Video game franchises introduced in 1997 Video games developed in the United States