Why ‘Harry Potter’ Just Got Outspent by Pokémon, Disney, and Marvel

Buying anything from ‘Harry Potter’ can turn into an exercise in finding out how many ordinary household objects can carry a Hogwarts crest. There are the expected robes and wands, followed by enough mugs, blankets, and accessories to make declaring your house allegiance a decorating commitment. Few franchises have turned fandom into a lifestyle quite so thoroughly.

That reputation has been decades in the making. One analysis of the franchise’s earning power counted US$8.5 billion from the films, US$7.7 billion from book sales, and US$7.3 billion from toys and merchandise. By any reasonable measure, the boy wizard built an empire.

Now a new ranking is asking how well that empire holds up against today’s biggest spenders. ‘Harry Potter’ places 10th in Zero1 Gaming’s new fandom spending ranking, with an estimated $502.52 million in expenditure. Collider, which shared the news on X, framed the result as the franchise losing its crown among the most profitable fandoms.

The top of the list looks very different. Pokémon leads at $1.71 billion, followed by the NFL, Disney, ‘Super Mario,’ and MLB, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe sitting just ahead of Hogwarts at about $552.89 million. The list also includes soccer giants such as FC Barcelona, Manchester United, and Real Madrid, which shows how crowded the field has become.

Pokémon’s dominance is the real story here. The study records approximately 40.2 million purchase-related searches for the franchise and estimates $985 million in spending on signature products such as games, plus another $301 million on apparel. Those are modeled figures rather than hard sales data, but they point to how many different ways fans can spend.

Other data backs up the franchise’s retail muscle. Circana reported that Pokémon was the top toy property in the U.S. in 2025, posting $2.5 billion in sales, up 87% year over year. It was also the first property in at least 20 years to pass the $2 billion mark in annual toy sales.

Collider’s own analysis suggests the secret is generational reach. Someone who started with ‘Pokémon Red’ or ‘Blue’ can now help a younger Trainer pick a first partner, teach them the card game, or join them for a walk in ‘Pokémon GO.’ That kind of shared hobby keeps merchandise moving long after any single release fades.

Context matters before anyone declares a Potter apocalypse. Collider notes that this study alone cannot establish how far the Wizarding World has fallen, because no earlier comparison is provided, and ‘Harry Potter’ still commands an estimated half-billion-dollar market. In other words, tenth place in a field this stacked is hardly a collapse.

The timing is also interesting, since the franchise is gearing up for a big reboot. HBO’s series had already cost nearly $200 million midway through production, and its first season is now expected to surpass the estimated $250 million budget of ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,’ previously the most expensive of the films. The studio is clearly betting heavily on a fresh wave of fandom.

The older films are not exactly gathering dust either. ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ recently landed among the most watched movies on HBO Max in a given week ahead of the reboot. That suggests plenty of viewers are still willing to return to Hogwarts, and presumably to buy a few more house scarves along the way.

Whether the series can push the franchise back up the spending charts remains to be seen. For now, Pikachu is outselling the Boy Who Lived, and the Wizarding World has a new rival to chase.