Jude Magnotti ‘26
EE Editor-In-Chief
In 2020, there was an explosion. Not a building, not a bomb, not even Covid-19, but a mobile video game that took the entire world by storm. From sports fans to tea lovers, no game captured the attention of entertainment-deprived teens quite like Retro Bowl.
Released in January of 2020, Retro Bowl was modeled after old-school techno bowl-type games as a pixelated simulation of the NFL experience. Despite being littered with bugs and glitches early on, the game’s simplistic yet enjoyable gameplay appealed to a wide audience of teens struggling during the pandemic.
Nine months after it was released, Retro Bowl EXPLODED into one of the biggest games in the world in just a few weeks. Accompanied by the arrival of the NFL season, every middle and high schooler with a phone couldn’t get their hands off this somewhat classic yet novel idea. People played for hours and hours, constructing multiple franchises, winning multiple championships, and sustaining their lame hours of the day with the thrill of demolishing a team 60-0.
Yet, like all exciting things, Retro Bowl’s sustainability could not last. After 6 straight months of breaking mobile game records, Retro Bowl’s numbers slowly began to taper down after the conclusion of the Super Bowl. Eventually, the game had lost over 90% of its previous players. The simplistic game style had finally become mundane and outdated as players shifted to the next passing mobile game fad.
However, it wasn’t entirely over for Retro Bowl and its fans. Every NFL season, their numbers would pop back up a little bit. Nowhere near what they had been in 2020, but nonetheless a reasonable improvement from their significant decline after the 2021 Super Bowl. These numbers would eventually culminate in the release of RB: College in 2023.
While not as well-regarded as its counterpart, the unique college atmosphere of the game attracted enough players to put up solid numbers and even retain a solid player base today. However, this alone would not be enough to save the Retro Bowl player base. Retro Bowl had very much sat in the background of the past few years of gaming. Quiet, yet still noticeably there. That would all change with the arrival of the 2024 NFL season.
Despite the player increase in previous seasons, RB’s numbers were still significantly down and would remain that way until the end of the year. At this point, many thought Retro Bowl to be dead permanently, a forgotten relic of the Covid-19 era.
They could never have accounted for what would happen next. Starting in 2025, Retro Bowl’s number shot up to its highest in years! Not quite what they were in 2020, but their first major step towards that in years. Many people redownloaded the game and continued with their franchises, while many new players joined the game for the first time. RB: College also experienced a similar jump while keeping up a healthy player base. As of this writing, Retro Bowl is still on this path with its numbers only trending further upward.
However, many skeptics still believe that the fad will pass yet again once the 2026 Super Bowl ends. This would most likely mean a permanent end to Retro Bowl. However, with the solid player base accumulated in 2025, combined with a variety of updates and new features, Retro Bowl seems to be here to stay. Still, only time will tell if this unprecedented reappearance will cement Retro Bowl’s status as one of the most legendary sports mobile games of all time, or just a novel and ineffective idea that outlived its 15 minutes of fame.