Meet the real-life Pokémon professors, the unsung heroes of competitive monster-battling

They offer advice, referee card games and manage players’ tantrums – we caught up with some of the volunteer profs who keep the competitive game going at this year’s world championships

Professors may be the most revered characters in the fictional world of Pokémon (apart from perhaps the Gym Leaders). In Pokémon Red and Blue, Professor Oak greets the player in a pixelated lab coat, and later provides trainers with their first battle partner; since then, each successive generation of games has introduced another professor to aid and guide trainers through their journeys. If you’ve ever played a Pokémon game, they are often the first people that you meet, apart from your in-game mom.

But you may not know that there are also real-world Pokémon professors – volunteers who help organise the game’s competitive communities around the world. Instead of lab coats, they can be seen at events wearing red Pikachu-mascot shirts labelled “staff”, paired with black trousers and shoes.

I spoke with several of these profs at the 2026 Pokémon world championships in San Francisco, California. Not only do they happily distribute their knowledge about Pokémon, but they also serve as vital staff at the tournament, working as referees and teachers, as well as event managers.

The official Pokémon website describes the Pokémon Professor Program as a “global network of passionate and knowledgable fans” who volunteer their time to help run official Pokémon events. There were roughly 300 Pokémon professors present at the 2026 Pokémon world championships, according to a representative of the Pokémon Company International. A professor’s responsibilities depend on the game they work with and their assigned role at the event. A Pokémon professor officiating a game such as Pokémon Unite might be hyper-focused on wrangling players and providing technical support, whereas a judge for a trading card game tournament might provide competitors with hands-on guidance as they navigate their first live competitive event.