2005 · Port · Sports

Backyard Skateboarding

Nintendo exclusivePort

Children's sports video game series and media franchise

Released: 4 October 2005
Platforms: Game Boy Advance
Genres: Sports
Developers: —
Publishers: Atari, Inc.
Modes: Single-player
Age ratings: ESRB E
Languages: English

About

Backyard Sports (originally branded as Junior Sports and then Humongous Sports; also simply known as the Backyard franchise) is an American video game-based media franchise created by Humongous Entertainment and currently handled by Playground Productions. It primarily focuses on video games for children featuring simplified versions of various sports. It is best known for starring a diverse cast of fictional children as well as child versions of famous professional sports athletes. The video game series includes five sub-series based on different team sports—Backyard Baseball (baseball), Backyard Soccer (association football), Backyard Football (American football), Backyard Basketball (basketball), and Backyard Hockey (ice hockey)—as well as the single game non-team sport-based Backyard Skateboarding. The overall franchise also includes two animated specials, an upcoming animated series, and various merchandise.

Backyard Sports is currently or was previously licensed by the five major professional American sports leagues: Major League Baseball (MLB), Major League Soccer (MLS), the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL), as well as their affiliated players associations. Between Humongous's closure in 2005 and Playground Productions' 2024 reboot of the series, the series changed ownership and developers several times and endured a years-long hiatus from 2010 to 2024 (excluding a brief mobile game revival in 2015), with a reboot of Backyard Baseball released in 2026 as the first original game in the series since the 2015 mobile games.

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Development

The series began in late 1997 when Humongous Entertainment, owned by GT Interactive, created the first game in the franchise: Backyard Baseball. Backyard Baseball was conceived by then-Humongous illustrator Nick Mirkovich, who pitched the idea of a baseball game featuring children as the players with one of the company's co-founders. The idea was picked up in 1995 during the Seattle Mariners' first-ever playoff run that season.

Later, GT Interactive was purchased by Infogrames and was renamed as Infogrames, Inc. Infogrames allowed Humongous Entertainment to expand the series, and Humongous later developed more titles such as Backyard Soccer, Backyard Football, Backyard Basketball, Backyard Hockey, and Backyard Skateboarding. Following the buyout by Infogrames, these titles from the Backyard series were released for game consoles, including the GameCube, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and Wii. In 2003, Infogrames, Inc. was renamed as Atari, Inc.