I think that is the issue, the 16 bit era ushered in the highly sought after and highly disposable sports games. Even the sports games on the original 2600 had a decent life span and even now are fun in spite of or because of their simplicity.
Sports games on the 2600 and Intellivision are simpler and more abstract. Later platforms' sports games had real player statistics, team rosters, etc., which made them more "realistic", but also more noticeably dated.