Potterhead Running Club Settles with Warner Bros., “Winding Down” Operations in Coming Months

Potterhead Running Club (also known as PHRC), the fandom-focused virtual running nonprofit organization that has supported numerous charities since its founding, has announced today, May 17, that it will be “winding down” its operations in the coming months.

The news, published by PHRC in a Facebook post, follows a lawsuit of over two years in length, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. v. Random Tuesday, Inc. et al, in the Central District of California. Random Tuesday, Inc., a registered 501(c)(3) organization in the United States, operates multiple virtual running communities, including PHRC.

MuggleNet has partnered with PHRC on multiple occasions, including the MuggleNet 20th Anniversary Virtual 20K as part of our 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2019 and the Fantastic Beasts 5K Charity Run (when PHRC was known as Hogwarts Running Club) in 2016.

In the Facebook announcement, PHRC referenced the court case and noted that a settlement was reached between the two parties. (In other words, this means that PHRC and Warner Bros. were able to come to a mutual agreement to dismiss the lawsuit.)

First, we will be winding down PHRC in the next few months. This step was not taken lightly, but we believe it is the best option under very difficult circumstances. We have reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit that Warner Bros. brought against us. The terms of the settlement are confidential, so there is not a whole lot we are able to discuss, but we will tell you what we can, when we can. The official statement is: the litigation has been settled to the satisfaction of the parties.

As noted in the above quote, the terms of the settlement are confidential and were not provided in the court docket online. Fans who have found a home in the PHRC community will continue to have access to the related Facebook groups for the time being, and some planned races will go forward as scheduled.

Additionally, PHRC noted that sales and auctions will be held for old PHRC medals.

We will also be moving most of the old PHRC medals out of the back catalog into their own event and putting them on sale. We will be hosting a silent auction for the remaining rarer medals that have made their way back to us and will likely launch one last Challenge shirt in June.

Despite the many changes listed in the announcement, PHRC expressed hope for the future.

We know that this is an enormous change and that it isn’t easy. None of us yet have the words to express how we are feeling about all of this. So many emotions are vying for attention, and we are just trying to process what all of these changes mean. But we have had some time to sit with it, and you all are hearing it for the first time. We know that this is not the news anyone wanted to hear, but it is the only news we have to offer, and we have hope that the #SOMUCHGOOD we have all created with PHRC will live on long after the club winds down, yes, even after ‘it all ends.’

For the full announcement from PHRC on the end of its operations, you can read the Facebook post embedded below.

Were you a part of the Potterhead Running Club community? Share your thoughts in the comments below.