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Quidditch, Poohsticks, and Pazaak – 10 Fictional Games/Sports That Became Real

quidditch

Whether you’re a Harry Potter fan, or Star Wars enthusiast, SBOT.net created an infographic which looks into some of the most bizarre fictional sports which are now played in real life by their devout fans. A new infographic from SBO.net finds the games and sports from fiction that hardcore fans have brought to the real world (with varying levels of accuracy).

For example, have you ever wanted to catch the snitch and win the Quidditch Cup? Thought you could win the Boonta Eve Classic in your homemade podracer? How about beating the MCP with your Light Cycle skills?

Each of these – from Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Tron respectively – are sports that have been taken from fiction to the field by fans who just weren’t satisfied just imagining being the sports stars, as the new graphic from SBO.net shows.

While players might struggle to fly (or hover, or avoid blowing up on hitting a wall made of light left behind by a motorcycle), players have come up with some workarounds:

  • Quidditch players stay firmly on the ground, but they hang onto their broomsticks between their legs. The snitch is attached to an impartial official.
  • Pod-racing is impractical no matter how you pitch it, but drone racing is increasing in popularity, with an entire league dedicated to it. And it’s a little less dangerous.
  • Light Cycles are a video game (the easiest way to transpose a fictional sport) but real life replicas have been made of the cycles featured in the 2010 Disney reboot.
  • The classic video game Pong has been taken out of the screen and featured in a variety of different styles, including having people dressing up as paddles and running backwards and forwards to deflect the ball.

The sports span a wide variety of different origins. Other big fan-bases include Battlestar Galactica, which produced the game basketball-esque team sport Pyramid (also called Triad). Pyramid is like basketball where the teams play on a pyramid shaped court and try to score points by getting a ball into a goal at the top of the pyramid. There’s also Star Trek (from which we get Tridimensional Chess), and the television show New Girl (which gave the world the drinking game “True American”, which is “50% drinking game, 50% life-size Candy Land”).

By the way, speaking of Quidditch, mark your calendars because every October, Chestnut Hill in Pennsylvania transforms into a world of wizardry for their Harry Potter Festival & Quidditch Tournament and Harry Potter academic conference for faculty and students. This event is perfect if you want to be around other fans of both the movies and books, then check in with Chestnut Hill next year for the exact dates and times when J.K. Rowling’s world comes to life with wizards, spells, potions, parades and more. You can participate in Harry Potter pub-crawls, costume contests, film showings and a real life Quidditch tournament.

If you don’t think that Quidditch is a popular sports, it’s played by over 500 teams in over 26 countries around the world, according to the International Quidditch Association (yes, there is such a thing). Check with them for an occasional World Cup of Quiddith tournament that you can attend as well.

So whether you’re a Potterhead or a Trekkie, like your sports energetic or card-based (or accompanied by drinks), or even just like more unusual sports and games, make sure to check out the full SBO fictional sports infographic here.

Written by Lisa Iannucci

Lisa Iannucci has been interviewing professional athletes and Olympians, sports writers and film/tv personalities for more than a decade. Her book, A Film & TV Lover's Travel Guide is now available: https://www.amazon.com/Location-Film-Lovers-Travel-Guide/dp/149303085X

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