These are the greatest SNES sports games for every major sport

The Super Nintendo is one of the most important gaming consoles of all time. It wasn't just a haven for platformers and RPGs — for an entire generation of gamers, it was where they first learned the rules of sports they hadn't even played in real life yet. Whether it was football, wrestling, Formula One, or even tennis. In the 16-bit hardware of the SNES, these games made gamers live and breathe all the sports in the world.

Looking back, the console had absolutely no shortage of sports-based games, but there were some that transcended the rest in each discipline. The tightest gameplay. The cleanest mechanics. The most lasting memories. One sport, one champ — let's get into it.

10 WWF Raw 1994 — Wrestling

Should I be calling this 'sports entertainment' instead?

Look, I love Saturday Night Slam Masters as much as the next guy, and I can tell you that it's decidedly more fun than WWF Raw. However, much like Wrestlemania on the arcade machines, Slam Masters is more of a fighting game rather than a proper wrestling game. WWF Raw '94, on the other hand, is the perfect SNES wrestling game... or should I call it sports entertainment today?

WWF Raw had everything — Bedlam mode, Royal Rumble mode, Tag matches, and the much-beloved ability to hold a bucket and a chair. Heck, I remember playing intergender matches with Luna Vachon taking on Shawn Michaels. It's strange how it took the modern-day WWE 2K series eleven games and twelve years to include intergender matches, while the SNES had it all the way back in '94.

9 NBA Jam: Tournament Edition — NBA

Boom Shaka Laka's in the chat, everybody

I may never have played Double Dribble on the NES, but NBA Jam quickly became one of my favorite games on the SNES. In fact, not only is it one of the best sports games on the Super Nintendo, but it is also one of the best games overall on the console. I'm talking, in particular, about the Tournament Edition version of the game, which came with bigger teams, more attributes, and heck, even some Mortal Kombat characters.

NBA Jam: TE was flashy, and loud, and that's why I love it over the vanilla version of the game. The game keeps its controls simple, the camera fixed, and the dunks and points flowing.

8 Kyle Petty's No Fear Racing — NASCAR

Another game I consider one of the greatest racing games on the Super Nintendo, Kyle Petty's No Fear Racing was loosely based on NASCAR. I must have spent hours on this game, making sure I lost the qualifiers to start at the very end of the lineup. Why? So that I could pass each car in the race one by one, and have the commentator lose their lungs on my zero-to-hero climb.

From tuning the car just right to finding the right time to slow down, speeding up, all while maneuvering the ideal race lines, Kyle Petty's No Fear Racing looked, played, and felt amazing for its time.

7 International Superstar Soccer Deluxe — Soccer

Between Mega Man Soccer and International Superstar Soccer Deluxe, fans of the sport with an SNES were pretty spoiled for choice, weren't they? While the former was a more arcade-y soccer game, International Superstar Soccer Deluxe took the FIFA-like approach, rendering the whole soccer ground. Players could choose the weather, the length of the ground, and plenty of teams.

While the core game remains thoroughly enjoyable and surprisingly deep, it is the penalty shootout mode that I sank the most number of hours in with a friend. Intentionally turning on the rain effects as my team went against him in the penalty round, nothing felt more cinematic. These fantastic visual effects really showed just how much of a generation leap we had taken, going from the NES to the 16-bit SNES.

6 Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball — Baseball

Baseball on the SNES simply didn't get better than this one

The one NES game I may have spent the largest number of days playing is Nintendo's own Baseball. In fact, playing that game is how I learned the rules of the sport. Then, with the SNES, things changed so dramatically, and indistinguishable 8-bit figures became detailed batters and pitchers, and no other game represented that as well as Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball.

Now, the game had immensely remarkable visuals, the core gameplay loop was tight and enjoyable throughout, and yet, the thing that blew me away the most, even back in 2008 when I first played it, was the bubble gum that some batters chewed. It looked and felt realistic, adding a layer of authenticity to the entire game's experience.

That wasn't all, though. KGJ Presents MLB had real teams, some really memorable music, and the one reason I hold it in such reverence — it was the first baseball game I ever scored a homerun in.

5 Super Punch Out!! — Boxing

An incredible game that has aged insanely well

Mike Tyson's Punch Out on the NES remains one of the most iconic games of all time, thanks in part to Iron Mike himself being one of the toughest video game bosses ever. On the SNES, it was 'Super Punch Out!!' that was just as fun and twice the quality. You start off in the minor circuit, fighting against smaller guys, and this is where I thought that I was really good at the game. Well, let's just say that Dragon Chan on the Major Circuit couldn't disagree more, and he soon rid me of my foul ambition.

Super Punch Out's gameplay loop of dodge-dodge-punch is immensely enjoyable, and doesn't get old no matter how many hours you put into it. Heck, I'd even argue that it's almost a Souls-like, in the way that you study the bosses as you fight them, keep getting beaten until your hands have learned the right combination of dodging to be able to put them down.

One of the most memorable games of all time, and certainly a fantastic boxing game all-around, Super Punch Out is one game that will never get old, no matter how many years pass by. Another thing that will never get old is hitting the unbearably smug face of Hurricane Piston on the minor circuit.

The most polished version of the sport on the Super Nintendo

Now, this game is the only one on this list that's about a sport I haven't actually played (except that one single evening at six years old when I tasted dirt for the first time after a tackle). Regardless, having played at least ten different American football games now, it's plain to see that Tecmo Super Bowl was the most polished version of the sport available on the Super Nintendo.

The game had real teams, real players, so many stats per player, and even more game modes. Truthfully, any of the Tecmo Super Bowl games could've been on this list, but the third one is obviously the most polished version of the game. Playing in the rain felt like something out of a movie, and I particularly loved the mechanic where, on defense, you had to pick the same play as the offense to stop it in its tracks. A close second here for football is most certainly Super High Impact, which cranked everything up to 11 when it came to dramatizing each tackle, throw, and catch. NFL Blitz was brilliant too — that one felt like the most accessible as someone who didn't know the rules to the sport, but that lack of knowledge is on me, not the games that demanded it.

3 Super Tennis — Tennis

I'm still playing this over Top Spin 2K, any day of the week

In June 2024, 2K gave out a free weekend of Top Spin 2K25. After playing the game and its limited roster over the course of two days and thoroughly engaging with the multiplayer aspect, I simply uninstalled it on Monday and went back to Super Tennis on the SNES emulator. There is simply nothing as fun as that game, even in 2025.

Now, my brother might like David Crane's Amazing Tennis on the console more, but that's certainly an opinion that could get pitchforks trained on him faster than he could say "game-set-match". Super Tennis, however, is pretty much the best tennis game on the SNES, combining everything good about every other tennis game on the console.

Serving was easy to master in a day, the camera system wasn't wonky or peculiarly placed, and the ball behaves like a real ball. In fact, I even like the fact that the hitbox is actually pretty forgiving for each forehand or backhand. It may never have allowed for a four-player local co-op experience, sure, but in a house of two that always loved to play five-setters one-on-one, that was never an issue. God, I love Super Tennis.

2 F1 ROC: Race of Champions — Formula One

The perfect blend between arcade and sim Formula racing

Oh man, this one took a while to decide. I first went with F1 Pole Position II as the best Formula One racing game on the SNES. However, Nigel Mansell's World Champion Racing was a close second thanks to its more sim-like, deep Formula One mechanics, and cockpit view that made it seem ahead of its time.

However, Pole Position II was decidedly more fun, thanks to its pick-and-play approach to the sport. Anyway, I then decided to pick F1 ROC: Race of Champions as the clear winner here. This one stuck the perfect middle-ground — it wasn't as hard as Nigel Mansell's WCR, but not as arcade-y as Pole Position II. The cars sounded brilliant, the menus were a joy to navigate, and the racing itself felt fast and smooth, with the game's responsiveness and performance standing out.

1 NBA Live '95 — This was real basketball on the Super Nintendo

The birth of a generational series

Sure, I may have picked NBA Jam's Tournament Edition earlier when it came to being downright fun and flying up to the ceiling while dunking, but for real basketball, there's no better winner than NBA Live '95. The first NBA Live title by EA that would live up to 2018, this was the title that changed how we consumed basketball games.

It was insane for basketball lovers to see the full-court angle in NBA Live '95 — the graphics looked top-notch, and the pièce de résistance was the instant replay feature that let you roll back the game to settle debates between players.

These sports games on the SNES were incredibly full of heart

Now, the SNES may not have had photorealistic sweat beads or official broadcast packages with real-life likenesses of top athletes, but damn, it had heart. It was a ways away from true sports simulations, sure, but it taught us how to love and feel sports games.

Every single one of these games was the best sports game of its kind on the Super Nintendo, but more importantly, it still holds up today when you pick up a controller. One sport, one winner — and the SNES made sure each of them had their moment in the sun.