Between 1980 and 1984 Atari and Intellivision waged a series of high-stakes TV advertising campaigns promoting their respective systems during the first round of console wars. Atari normally prevailed in arcade games and had a deeper installed base due to its lower price, while Mattel's Intellivision touted its visually superior sports games. Sports writer George Plimpton was featured in the Intellivision ads, which showed the parallel games side by side. Both Atari and Mattel fielded at least one game for baseball, football, hockey, basketball, auto racing and soccer.

Activision Tennis (1981)

Track & Field (1982)

Pole Position (1982).

On Court Tennis (1984)

Championship Baseball (1984)

GFL Championship Football (1985) -- American Football

Star Rank Boxing (1985)

Gamestar Basketball Association (GBA) Championship Basketball - Two-on-Two (1986)

Star Rank Boxing II (1987)

Top Fuel Eliminator (1987)

Face Off! (1987)

25 position on its list of the Best 150 Games of All Time, the second highest ranking for any sports game in that 1981-1996 period (after FPS Sports Football).

On 13 December 2004, Electronic Arts began a string of deals that granted exclusive rights to several prominent sports organizations, starting with the NFL.• This was quickly followed with two deals in January securing rights to the AFL• and ESPN licenses.• This was a particularly hard blow to Sega, the previous holder of the ESPN license, who had already been affected by EA's NFL deal. As the market for football brands was being quickly taken by EA, Take-Two Interactive responded by contacting the Major League Baseball Players Association and signing a deal that granted exclusive third-party major-league baseball rights•; a deal not as restrictive, as first-party projects were still allowed. The NBA was then approached by several developers, but declined to enter into an exclusivity agreement, instead granting long-term licenses to Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Midway Games, Sony, and Atari.• In April, EA furthered its hold on football licensing by securing rights to all NCAA football brands.•

Some sports games are based on fictional sports, usually of a fantasy or science fiction nature. One of the most notable examples of this is the Speedball series; Speedball 2 was a huge success, particularly on the Commodore Amiga. Bearing some similarities to Team handball, the game introduces a number of futuristic gadgets that affect the gameplay immensely. Brutality is permitted; it is considered legal and acceptable to bash opponents with a metal ball. A number of sports have received the sci-fi treatment over the years, most frequently in the racing genre. F-Zero popularized the futuristic racing genre, and was followed by a number of sequels.

A number of games introduce fantasy elements to existing sports, subtle or otherwise, to add comedic effect to a game, such as Brutal Sports Football, released by Millennium in 1992. Like Speedball, the game was inspired by American football, but placed a larger focus on injuring, maiming, and even killing opponents. It is possible to win a match by simply decapitating the entire opposing team.

In some titles contained within this extended genre, the fantasy element is less prominent, particularly in titles such as Ready 2 Rumble and Outlaw Golf — games that, while strategically true to the sport, introduce comedy elements that would not realistically be seen in a serious simulation. For example, in Outlaw Golf, the choice of characters includes a stripper, a rapper, a Latin American Casanova-style figure and a mad scientist. Golf balls leave trails of smoke and fire when hit hard and the game features an over-enthusiastic and sarcastic commentator.