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Major League Quidditch Inaugural Season Begins June 1

By Staff
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Updated: March 23, 2015

This summer, the quidditch community will see the debut of Major League Quidditch, a national league comprised of teams from eight major cities that will compete from the beginning of June until the end of August.

“Our sport had no competitive play in the best weather season of the year, had no league made up purely of its best players and had no standardized, exclusive league that would make things like tracking statistics and film across the board possible,” said MLQ founder and Chair, Ethan Sturm. “MLQ hopes to accomplish all of that.”

MLQ’s inaugural teams will hail from Boston, New York, Washington DC, Cleveland, Rochester, Indianapolis, Detroit and Ottawa. Locations were chosen considering player density, community leadership, travel friendliness and city appeal, according to Sturm. Teams were limited to eight as a trial run, but are expected to expand throughout North America in the future.

Each team has a manager who is responsible for holding tryouts and choosing top players in the area for their team. Managers for the 2015 season include Patrick Callanan, Amanda Dallas, Alex Scheer, James Hicks, Kara Levis, Katie Milligan, Clare Hutchinson and Erin Moreno.

The International Referee Development Program will provide all referees for the league, and equipment will be made by The Warriors’ Alex Amodol. Savage Ultimate sponsors all of the teams in the MLQ and will create the kits for each squad, as well as snitch and staff apparel.

“Working with Savage Ultimate will give us the change to equip our teams with some of the best kits in the sport and guarantee a high level of professionalism,” Sturm said. “We know that money is always a major hurdle to increased quidditch play, and we will be doing everything we can to mitigate the issue.”

MLQ is not affiliated with USQ, but hopes to, “have nothing but a positive relationship with USQ.”

“We respect everything USQ does for the sport, but the very foundation of this league–a limited number of teams with a limited number of players–flies in the face of the competitive inclusiveness that is a cornerstone of USQ,” Sturm said.

MLQ teams will be off on the weekends of major fantasy tournaments, in order to allow players to participate, but MLQ Chair and New York manager Amanda Dallas thinks that will change in future seasons.

“This season, I don’t see it having much of an affect on fantasy tournaments. However, down the line, I think it will cause a decline in the number of above-average and elite players in attendance at the summer tournaments,” Dallas said. “This is simply because they will be the individuals playing in the MLQ league and will need to make that their priority.”

Sturm has high expectations for the league and the future of professional quidditch.

“The current format of the regular season doesn’t lend itself to uniform film, statistical analysis, consistent high-level competition or a constant display of the best athletes the sport has to offer,” Sturm said. “Hopefully we can change that this summer.”

Tryout information will be announced after World Cup 8. For more info, you can visit mlquidditch.com.