Sport is a significant part of society. It entertains while serving as a space to explore and expand your abilities. So it’s not that surprising that it also plays a large part in fiction. Plenty of creatives pour a ton of effort into creating fictional sports for their stories.
Best Fictional Sports
Here are some of the best fictional sports that have taken hold in many people’s imaginations.
1. Quidditch from Harry Potter
Harry Potter’s Quidditch is perhaps the biggest spectacle in the wizarding world. On their broomsticks, two teams of seven duke it out in an aerial battle that mixes the rules of basketball, rugby, dodgeball, and soccer.
A real-life game, officially named quadball, has been created due to its popularity. However, players run around on broomsticks instead of flying.
2. Dragon Racing from How to Train Your Dragon 2
We pretty much race every kind of transportation we already have. It’s not hard to believe that if dragons exist, we’d probably be racing them too.
It’s not so simple as speeding to the finish line though. Each competitor has to avoid obstacles, perform maneuvers, and take sheep dotted across the course for bonus points.
3. Light Cycle Races from Tron and Tron: Legacy
Think of the game “Snake” but way cooler. Competing teams of five ride around a massive arena using bikes that emit light trails from the back. The aim is to make the other team crash into your light trails or push them out of the boundaries to win.
4. Mario Kart from the Mario Kart Series
If people ever figured out how to make it work, a real-life version of Mario Kart would probably be the next evolution of motorsports. Imagine competing in a race with powerups and booby traps.
Unfortunately, it might just be too dangerous a sport for humans—unless we somehow invent go-karts that give a lot of protection.
5. BASEketball from BASEketball
BASEketball is a sport that combines basketball and baseball. There is one thing that makes it chaotic and entertaining: psyching out the competition by any means necessary.
It’s more of a goofy activity than a serious sport, but think of how creative players can get with their distractions while still trying to shoot baskets.
6. Robot Boxing from Real Steel
Robot battles already exist, but they’re still in the clunky, experimental phase. Real Steel’s robots are fully developed high-tech machines participating in brutal slugfests. No person gets hurt but it’s going to be quite an expensive sport.
Just imagine how it would feel to watch one of these matches. You’ll hear the screech of metal against metal, feel the vibrations of their fight, and revel in the childish enjoyment of destruction.
7. Dejarik from Star Wars
Dejarik looks like a holographic game of chess, except with monsters or aliens as the pieces. Given the popularity of tabletop games like Dungeons and Dungeons, this is almost guaranteed to be a hit if it ever becomes real.
8. Rocket League from Rocket League
Imagine soccer except with a humongous ball and rocket-powered cars. It sounds goofy as hell but it’s proven to be quite the entertaining game. Just think about the technicalities of the game—players should not only be good at their ball skills but also their driving.
9. Pro Bending from Legend of Korra
Pro Bending is a team-based sport where benders, people who can manipulate the elements, compete against each other. The goal is to knock the opposing team off the ring solely through bending techniques.
It’s like a wrestling match, except there’s no touching—just a lot of slinging elements around, transforming the stage, and acrobatics.
10. Anbo-Jitsu from Star Trek
In the context of the show, Anbo-Jitsu is the “ultimate evolution of martial arts.” Two opponents wearing armor temporarily render themselves blind and fight with a staff. On one end of the staff is a sensor, used to locate their opponent while the other end is padded and used for hitting.
There are a lot of stories and studies about humans gaining heightened or supernatural senses when one sense is taken away. Considering this, Anbo-jitsu doesn’t seem to be such an absurd idea.
11. Brockian Ultra-Cricket from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Brockian Ultra-Cricket involves suddenly hitting people, running away, and apologizing from a distance. At least, that’s the easiest thing to understand.
The sport is known for its extreme complexity and incomprehensibility, making it all the more entertaining to watch people trying to play the game. It’s more for comedy than athleticism but just imagine how amazingly chaotic it will be in real life.
12. Blitzball from Final Fantasy
Blitzball is a team-based sport that closely resembles soccer. However, full contact and the use of a player’s whole body is allowed. Oh, it’s also played in a massive sphere of water suspended in the air.
Sports in Fiction
Sports in fiction range from simple events mentioned in passing to fully thought-out activities complete with rules and strategies.
From a writer’s standpoint, these activities are a great way of worldbuilding as well as an opportunity to advance the plot. You can take advantage of humanity’s thirst for competition to paint a vivid picture of the story.
As for readers? These fictional sports are plenty of fun to read, play, or watch. In some cases, people have become so invested in them that they go on to make real-life versions or as close as they can make them to be.
What other fictional sports do you wish were real? Share them in the comments below!
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Cole is a blog writer and aspiring novelist. He has a degree in Communications and is an advocate of media and information literacy and responsible media practices. Aside from his interest in technology, crafts, and food, he’s also your typical science fiction and fantasy junkie, spending most of his free time reading through an ever-growing to-be-read list. It’s either that or procrastinating over actually writing his book. Wish him luck!
