By Jacob Feldman
Sports Business Reporter
Playground Productions debuted the last of its initial run of re-created Backyard Sports games on Thursday, with the reintroduction of Backyard Basketball ’01 and Backyard Hockey ‘02. The titles are available for free on Steam, with the basketball game also freely available on mobile app stores as the company turns its attention to entirely new endeavors next year.
In January, a Backyard Sports-themed animated special will debut, starring Tiffany Haddish and Arturo Castro. Later in the year, the first wholly new game will be available, according to CEO Lindsay Barnett. The Backyard Sports team has been mum on details of that title, though it will be inspired by what has drawn fans to the franchise for more than 25 years.
Playground Productions began making the classic games available on modern devices after corralling the necessary IP rights in 2024. Without source code to work from, each game had to be re-developed. All six classic Backyard Sports games—Baseball ’97, Baseball ’01, Football ’99, Soccer ’98, Basketball ’01 and Hockey ’02—are now available in a bundle on Steam, for $36. The company intends to continue adding new elements to those old games as well as making them available on additional platforms. On Thursday, Soccer ’98 was also released for free downloads on iOS and Android app stores.
Backyard Hockey ‘02 includes former NHL stars who were in the original game, such as Martin Brodeur, Mike Modano, Joe Thornton and Jarome Iginla. Developers also added other ex-NHLers who weren’t in the original game, including Chris Chelios and Jeremy Roenick.
The playable roster in Backyard Basketball ‘01 is headlined by Lisa Leslie alongside the typical Backyard characters. Leslie was one of the first female athletes included in a video game when the title first appeared. “That game was one of my favorites as a kid,” Barnett said. Women now make up 52% of U.S. gamers, and the series has long prided itself on the mixture of boys and girls on teams.
Sticky Situation, the name of the first Backyard Sports-themed special show, will be a 2D animated adaptation of the Backyard Sports’ world. It’s set to debut at Dave & Buster’s locations before moving to YouTube. Haddish will play Kiesha Phillips, while Castro voices Pablo Sanchez and Ego Nwodim will portray Stephanie Morgan. Playground Production executives also have their eyes on a potential scripted series starring the game’s characters.
“2026 has a lot of new and exciting things in store,” Barnett said. “Retro will always be an important part of our brand. But going into 2026 we really want to expand in areas of storytelling that this Backyard Sports universe has never done before.”
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