ESPN Marks ‘Harry Potter’ Quidditch Milestone, and Twitter Has Thoughts

With a day full of college football action, as well as a heavyweight battle between LSU and Alabama, it’s expected that ESPN would be focused on the upcoming games. However, the sports broadcaster first had to go back in history to mark a momentous occasion. Specifically, they wanted to highlight the first time that Harry Potter stepped onto the Quidditch field.

Saturday morning, ESPN posted a photo of a young Potter (played by Daniel Radcliffe in the Warner Bros. film series) to highlight an important milestone. As of Saturday, it was now a major anniversary in the young wizard’s life and sporting career.

“28 years ago today, Harry Potter made his Quidditch debut as Gryffindor’s seeker,” the caption on Twitter read.

As expected, this post was met with some wildly contrasting reactions. Some fans obviously got the joke and wanted to have some fun while others were frustrated that ESPN wasn’t covering a “real” sport.

“Today is literally a day full of college football…” one user wrote in response to the tweet. Although they did later add that Potter had been kicked off of the Quidditch team for breaking Draco Malfoy’s nose and that he was only 1-4 in games that mattered.

“No he didn’t it’s fiction,” another user responded.

Whether or not Quidditch is technically a “real” sport doesn’t matter to some. The conversation that is flying under the radar, in their opinion, is that Potter is one of the greatest athletes in history. Sure, he did use a broom that was given to him by a third party, which would have resulted in a lifelong suspension under NCAA rules, but he still showcased immense potential during his early career.

“When it comes to greatest athlete we don’t talk about my man Harry Potter enough,” one user wrote while adding in multiple goat emojis.

In comparison to other top-shelf athletes such as Michael Jordan and Tom Brady, it’s difficult to determine where Potter fits, but there were many on Twitter that wanted to make a case for him. Although others said that having only one title to his name was a massive knock on his resume. Brady has six rings.

Of course, the biggest question swirling on Twitter revolved around the date that was listed. The first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the U.S.) came out in 1997, while the movie of the same name came out in 2001. Multiple users angrily tried to correct ESPN’s timeline. However, what they didn’t realize was that Potter was actually born in 1980, per the books, so he would have been 11 years old in 1991.

Photo Credit: John Phillips UK Press/Getty)