Over the past few months, Playground Productions has been busy bringing Pablo Sanchez, Stephanie Morgan and the beloved Backyard Sports video game franchise back to Eckman Acres and the rest of the neighborhood ballparks.
While the old classics continue to be rereleased, a next-generation Backyard Sports video game is on the way.
Playground Productions recently told Sports Illustrated that the new video game project, which will be officially announced later Tuesday, is “deep in production.” While the featured sport of the new game is unknown and the release date has yet to be announced, Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett and chief product officer Chris Waters have a specific vision for how it will look.
“Being able to be in position to bring back a franchise that I love, I want to make sure that we are putting in the work to bring back that nostalgic feel,” Barnett said in an exclusive interview with Sports Illustrated. “And make it authentic to the people who loved it in the 1990s. That’s definitely the design language and what we’re going for [in the new game]. … We want to make sure this game is accessible for little kids who want to play this and also [difficult enough for] adults who want to play it.”
The franchise’s original video game, Backyard Baseball, was created by Humongous Entertainment in 1997, introducing the world to an iconic cast of 30 fictional Backyard Sports kids. Over the next few years, the franchise added soccer, football, basketball and hockey games to its repertoire and partnered with the MLS, NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL and MLB to feature professional athletes in the games as the kid versions of themselves.
After the brand fell silent for about a decade, Playground Productions purchased the publishing rights and initially announced its intent to reboot the franchise in August. On Oct. 10—exactly 27 years after the game’s initial drop—the original Backyard Baseball ’97 was rereleased and opened as the top-ranked sports video game on Steam.
The next-generation project currently in production will mark the franchise’s first new release since 2015, although it’ll feel more like the original classics when the series was at its peak.
“What we can say is we are eternally grateful for the Humungous Entertainment team and the legacy they left, especially those early games in terms of the design language, in terms of the accessibility, in terms of how Backyard could be played by everybody,” Waters said. “There was so much love in terms of the animation, in terms of the design. And then it drifted in later years. We really want to pay homage to those early games in terms of the look. … So we’re not going to stray too far from what we think makes those games really special to fans.”
Playground Productions has yet to disclose if professional sports leagues and athletes will be featured in the next-generation game under development.
“We have these 30 characters, plus our announcers, that we want to showcase,” Waters said. “And so first and foremost, that’s our priority. In terms of other partnerships, whether it’s professional athletes, whether it’s leagues, those are conversations we’re excited to have.”
“We want to make sure that it’s a really authentic experience for our fans,” Barnett said. “We also have a good understanding of what people loved about the original games. The greatest road map that we have as producers and creators of this next iteration of this franchise is taking a look at what worked in the past and making it even better for the future.”
Revamping the Backyard Sports franchise has been the dream of Barnett, the founder and CEO of Playground Productions, for many years. Like millions of other kids in the 1990s and early aughts, she grew up an avid player of the video games.
But even Barnett didn’t know she’d actually be able to bring it back to the mainstream.
When the global pandemic struck in 2020, Barnett was a public school teacher in Chicago. Adjusting to life as a full-time remote teacher, she noticed many books that she would read to her students were getting turned into television shows and movies on streaming platforms. That reinvigorated her long-term goal to create a children’s and family production company, and the chase to track down Pablo Sanchez and the Backyard Sports series began.
It didn’t come easy. Rights to the franchise changed hands so many times over the last decade-plus that it became quite the unexpected scavenger hunt.
“It became a much bigger journey,” Barnett said. “I thought it was going to be something you could Google search and get an answer to who owns the brand. It wasn’t that simple. I wound up hiring a private investigator to track down the rights. Six months later, the PI came back and said we found the rights to this. It began a very long negotiation and relationship with the former owners. It was really crazy that was the process of getting this—didn’t think I was going to become Nancy Drew.”
While Barnett worked to find the rights, the Backyard Sports games gained media attention earlier this year when former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce mentioned to his brother Travis Kelce on their New Heights podcast that he was determined to bring back the series. That news excited the massive Backyard Sports fan base, but at the time, Barnett was still trying to cross the goal line on her acquisition.
“It’s actually really funny,” Barnett said. “Every friend or family that knew of the journey I was on was reaching out being like, ‘Did you see Jason and Travis talking about Backyard Sports on the New Heights podcast?’ And I was like, ‘I haven’t signed the deal yet, guys. I need to close this!’ It was so nerve-wracking for me. The sellers were amazing and, ultimately, were true to what they said they were going to do.
“Jason and Travis are awesome fans of the brand. … It’s so fun to see all of the professional athletes who are at the top of their games who are reaching out and saying how much they love this brand.”
Add Kansas City Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. to that group. Before Playground Productions officially announced the relaunch of the franchise, they wanted to plant a Backyard Sports bat during MLB Players Weekend in August. Witt, in the midst of his first career All-Star season this summer, took them up on the offer and used a Pablo Sanchez-themed bat in a game against the Cincinnati Reds.
And, of course, he homered.
Bobby Witt Jr. joins the 25/25 club for the 2nd straight season!
Of course he did it with the Pablo Sanchez bat. 😤 pic.twitter.com/MBjb0sSVfY
— MLB (@MLB) August 16, 2024
A few days later, Playground Productions made its highly anticipated announcement.
“It just felt like destiny, the timing of everything coming together,” Waters said. “Bobby is such a great ambassador for baseball and is such an incredible young player. Just an example of how much this game captured the imagination and probably inspired a lot of these guys to go play baseball.”
Despite there not being a renowned Backyard Sports video game newly released in nearly two decades, the fan base lived on. Before the Playground Productions relaunch, there were online communities that continued to play the games together in Discord leagues or live streamed classic game play on Twitch. Mega Cat Studios, the developer in both the rereleases and the new game currently in production, hired some of those engineers who would mod the game in their free time.
Between those developers, Barnett—the self-described obsessive Backyard Sports fan—and Waters—who sports a Pablo Sanchez tattoo—it’s clear the long-absent franchise has found the right owners. This relaunch is run for Backyard Sports fans, by Backyard Sports fans.
“Every single ambitious and optimistic dream has been exceeded because of this brand,” Barnett said. “And that’s really the power of Pablo and Sunny Day and Pete and our developers. They have done such an amazing job. We just can’t imagine this getting any better. But it just seems to be getting better every day.”
In addition to the new game currently in production, Playground Productions is officially rereleasing Backyard Soccer ’98 on Nov. 27. Just like the Backyard Baseball ’97 relaunch in October, Backyard Soccer ’98 will be available for purchase on Steam and via Steam Deck.
Four more titles—Backyard Football ’99, Backyard Baseball ’01, Backyard Basketball ’01 and Backyard Hockey ’02—will follow suit in the future.
Playground Productions is also working on making the rereleased games mobile-accessible, bringing the beloved PC games to phones and tablets in the near future. They are also about to go into production on an animated project that will be available to watch in 2025.
“Right out of the gate, I think what the fans said is we love this game, we want this game back, and we want more of it,” Waters said. “We’re working on the games but other verticals in entertainment and animation. I think it’s made us even more bullish about our future and what the appetite is for Backyard Sports content.”
