Harry Potter is more than just a series of books or films. It has become a massive cultural phenomenon with people pouring over all available content related to it to learn and enjoy everything about the wizarding world and its most famous characters. For a group of Harry Potter fans that acquired knowledge is being put to the test with a special game show, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses.
As the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (aka Philosopher’s Stone in the U.K.) celebrates its 20th anniversary on Nov. 16, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses is a special game show that will take place over four weeks and see contestants competing against each other as they represent the four famed houses of Hogwarts, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherine. Whoever emerges from the bracket-style tournament will take home the Tournament of Houses championship trophy and a grand prize package featuring other Harry Potter experiences.
Here’s everything that you need to know about Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses.
When is ‘Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses’ airing?
The four-week special game show will officially begin on Sunday, Nov. 28 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on both TBS and Cartoon Network. The subsequent games will take place at the same time and on the same networks each Sunday until Dec. 19.
Here is the schedule of matchups for Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses:
Nov. 28: Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff
Dec. 5: Ravenclaw vs Slytherine
Dec. 12: Wildcard Round (featuring the two losing houses)
Dec. 19: Grand Finale
Who is the ‘Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses’ host?
Despite the Harry Potter cast being ripe with famous and classy names that could have served as the master of ceremonies for Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses, the production opted to go outside the Potter-verse, choosing Oscar-winner Helen Mirren as host.
Though it seemed during the making of the movies that Harry Potter employed all of the working actors in the U.K., the game show will mark Helen Mirren’s first time doing anything Harry Potter-related. Of course Mirren is always fantastic, be it winning an Oscar for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen or racing up streets and flirting with Vin Diesel in the Fast and Furious franchise. Now she’ll serve as the temporary headmaster for this trivia tournament.
Of course, some members of the Harry Potter cast will appear during its run. It’s been confirmed that Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Simon Fisher-Becker (Fat Friar), Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle), Luke Youngblood (Lee Jordan) will cameo. Harry Potter superfans Pete Davidson and Jay Leno are also set to appear.
Is there a ‘Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses’ trailer?
Fans can get a taste of what’s in store with Harry Potter: Tournament of Houses by watching the trailer below.
Can fans at home participate in ‘Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses’?
If you are a little disappointed you weren’t able to compete in Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses and just trying to guess along with the game isn’t competitive enough for you, you’re in luck — a companion digital quiz event will take place on WizardingWorld.com.
This quiz will consist of three online quizzes that escalate in difficulty. The first quiz will be shared on Nov. 26, with the second and third quiz coming out on Dec. 3 and Dec. 10, respectively. The winner will be announced on Dec. 20.
How to watch ‘Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses’
As mentioned above, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses will only air on TBS and Cartoon Network during its four-week run. Both of those are cable networks, so in order to watch these games lives viewers will need to be subscribed to a traditional cable/satellite pay-TV service that offers those channels (a majority do) or a live TV streaming service that includes them, like Hulu with Live TV, Sling TV and YouTube TV.
As Harry Potter is a Warner Bros. property, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses will eventually be made available on HBO Max, though that is not expected until early 2022.
If none of these options are available to you, look into a virtual private network, or VPN. A virtual private network allows you to route all of your internet traffic through a specific set of servers in a specific country. The one caveat here is that you need to be able to trust your VPN provider, because all of your traffic — encrypted as well as unencrypted — is going to be going through that VPN. For that, we've long been fans of ExpressVPN.
