The Backyard Sports Franchise Is Officially Back Up to Bat

The greatest athlete of all time, Pablo Sanchez, is officially busting out of retirement to reassert his reign over the neighborhood in Backyard Sports. The nostalgia-inducing sports franchise of the early ’00s has announced its return to bat with a brand-new teaser.

The teaser trailer drums up the comfort of the franchise’s first entry, Backyard Baseball, though Playground Production’s CEO Lindsay Barnett has hinted at ambitious plans for the Backyard brand. Beyond relaunching the game franchise, Variety implied that the scrappy young athletes of Backyard Sports could go on to star in their own movies and television series. Tuesday’s statements from Playground Productions painted the future of the franchise in broad strokes but did not specify what titles fans can expect or provide any further details about potential gaming systems or timelines.

Based on the teaser, all signs point to Backyard Baseball being the first title to launch Backyard Sports‘ return, but other sports covered across the brand’s history include basketball, football, soccer, hockey, and skateboarding. And, as beloved as crop-top-wearing Pablo Sanchez is, it’s not just the iconic Backyard kids who contributed to the athletic feats achieved in Backyard Sports.

Licensing deals with leagues like the NBA and NFL meant that players could draft Backyard kid versions of real athletes to compete alongside the franchise’s original characters. It’s likewise not been clarified whether this crucial element of Backyard Sports will remain intact in the Playground Productions version of the franchise, though based on conversations on their podcast “New Heights.” the brotherly NFL duo of Jason and Travis Kelce would likely be first in line to lend their likenesses to Backyard Football.

An official website for Backyard Sports has been launched alongside the trailer, evoking the teaser’s familiar nostalgia for the franchise’s peak CD-ROM era. Though Backyard Sports saw entries for systems like PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS, it struggled to maintain the foothold it held in the CPU sports market. Mobile gaming proved an additional challenge, with the brand ultimately fizzling out after 2015’s poorly received mobile renditions of Backyard Baseball and Backyard Basketball.

Playground Productions chief product officer Chris Waters promises that the company’s upcoming iteration of Backyard Sports “[takes] great care to preserve the look and feel that made the original games so special while updating them with modern features and gameplay that today’s audience expects.” Playground Productions premiered Tuesday’s Backyard Sports teaser on their new Instagram, where fans can expect to find future details of the franchise’s brand-new roster.