Sports fans and gamers who grew up in the ’90s will want to listen to this…
Philadelphia Eagles superstar center Jason Kelce has hinted at the idea of buying and rebooting one of the most beloved sports video game franchises that peaked in popularity during the ’90s and 2000s.
During the latest edition of the “New Heights” podcast that he co-hosts with brother Travis Kelce, Jason hinted at possibly purchasing the rights of the “Backyard Baseball” and “Backyard Football” video games and rebooting them (via Hunter Hodies of The Spun):
“I don’t even know if I want to mention this because I’ve secretly been looking and seeing if anybody holds the rights to Backyard Football and Backyard Baseball because I want to buy it and get this thing going again. That was the best game ever. It was so electric.”
Humongous Entertainment was the video game developer that created the “Backyard” sports video games (baseball, football, soccer, hockey, basketball and skateboarding). The studio, however, went defunct in August 2005.
Atari was the parent company of Humongous Entertainment. In 2013, Atari SA sold the rights of Humongous Entertainment to American video game publishing company Tommo.
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The first “Backyard Baseball” video game was released in 1997 on Windows and Macintosh. After a five-year hiatus, the last game of the series, “Backyard Sports: Baseball 2015” was released in 2015.
The first “Backyard Football” was released in 1999, with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young gracing the cover. The final installment of the beloved video game franchise, “Backyard Sports: Rookie Rush” was released in 2010.
According to Spotrac, Kelce has made just over $81 million in career earnings. And that doesn’t take his endorsement deals into account. So Kelce certainly has the funds and the support behind him to relaunch “Backyard Baseball” and “Backyard Football” if he’s serious on it.
