Mario has picked up some kind of sport for decades under different developers, and these sports games have been a consistent source of fun for multiplayer mayhem. Here are the four major Mario sports series out there, with some others to follow:
**[Mario Golf](https://youtu.be/5R-EuaUbPvc):** This series arguably began all the way back on the NES with Open Tournament Golf, featuring Mario in a snazzy all-American golf outfit. The first proper game came out for the N64 in 1999, followed by Toadstool Tour for the GameCube, and with both releases getting companion titles on handhelds. Then after a decade-long hiatus, the series returned with the highly underrated Mario Golf World Tour on 3DS and, 7 years later, Super Rush for the Switch.
**[Mario Tennis](https://youtu.be/mMHT2vdWvpg):** This series has its roots on the Virtual Boy with Mario’s Tennis, but didn’t start proper until 2000 with the release of the simply titled Mario Tennis for N64. This was followed up with the fan-favorite Mario Power Tennis for GameCube, and like Golf both console games got companion releases on handhelds at the time. Tennis was certainly far more active than any other Mario sports series, with Nintendo giving us a Wii port of Power Tennis, Mario Tennis Open on 3DS, Ultra Smash on Wii U, and Aces on Switch.
**[Mario Baseball/Sluggers](https://youtu.be/sSDzFZPmMSA):** Developed by Bandai Namco, these two baseball games are pretty much what you’d expect when you think of an arcadey Mario baseball game. I hear opinions flip flop between which one is their favorite; sometimes it’s the GameCube original and sometimes it’s the Wii sequel. I haven’t had much experience with this series to really comment, but what I do remember is that the character roster for the Wii game was huge.
**[Mario Strikers](https://youtu.be/_UmjcJT6nuQ):** This is arguably the one that gave Mario and friends more personality than they ever would have. Developed by Next Level Games, this trilogy took the standard game of soccer and turned it into a bloodsport. The original was a rather late GameCube release, but the Wii sequel came out rather early and with tons of new content and other features like online play. The cutscenes and animations for each character are out of this world and I’m sure many are happy with the newest one on Switch.
There are some other games as well like the Mario & Sonic Olympics series, those two EA games on GameCube that nobody remembers, and the two Square Enix sports games that also feature Final Fantasy characters. And finally there was that one [Mario sports compilation on 3DS](https://youtu.be/qQZCq9hHt5Y) that nobody remembers because it came out just a few weeks after the launch of the Switch and Breath of the Wild.