RealSports is a series of sports video games originally developed and published Atari, Inc.
By the early 1980s, Atari's initial sports releases for the VCS — Home Run and Football — were dated in terms of visuals and gameplay, and targeted by an Intellivision ad campaign from Mattel.
The RealSports series was an attempt by Atari to revitalize the sports game lineup for their consoles.
[4] The 1984 Software Encyclopedia called the RealSports series an effective update to Atari's sports game offerings.
[5] In 2018, the British magazine Retro Gamer assessed the RealSports franchise positively compared to Mattel's Sports Network series for the Intellivision in a head-to-head comparison.