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The game of Quidditch continues to thrill and obsess its many fans around the world. Nowadays every purchaser of a Quidditch match ticket is guaranteed to witness a sophisticated contest between highly skilled fliers (unless of course the Snitch is caught in the first five minutes of the match, in which case we all feel slightly shortchanged). Nothing demonstrates this more than the difficult moves that have been invented over its long history by witches and wizards eager to push themselves and the game as far as they can go. Some of these are listed below.

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The breakthrough occurred in 1926, when the brothers Bob, Bill, and Barnaby Ollerton started the Cleansweep Broom Company. Their first model, the Cleansweep One, was produced in numbers never seen before and marketed as a racing broom specifically designed for sporting use. The Cleansweep was an instant, runaway success, cornering as no broom before it, and within a year, every Quidditch team in the country was mounted on Cleansweeps. The Ollerton brothers were not left in sole possession of the racingbroom market for long. In 1929 a second racingbroom company was established by Randolph Keitch and Basil Horton, both players for the Falmouth Falcons. The Comet Trading Companys first broom was the Comet 140, this being the number of models that Keitch and Horton had tested prior to its release. The patented HortonKeitch braking charm meant that Quidditch players were much less likely to overshoot goals or fly offside, and the Comet now became the broom of preference for many British and Irish teams in consequence.

While the CleansweepComet competition became more intense, marked by the release of the improved Cleansweeps Two and Three in 1934 and 1937 respectively, and the Comet 180 in 1938, other broomstick manufacturers were springing up all over Europe. The Tinderblast was launched on the market in 1940. Produced by the Black Forest company Ellerby and Spudmore, the Tinderblast is a highly resilient broom, though it has never achieved the top speeds of the Comets and Cleansweeps. In 1952 Ellerby and Spudmore brought out a new model, the Swiftstick. Faster than the Tinderblast, the Swiftstick nevertheless has a tendency to lose power in ascent and has never been used by professional Quidditch teams.

In 1955 Universal Brooms Ltd. introduced the Shooting Star, the cheapest racing broom to date. Unfortunately, after its initial burst of popularity, the Shooting Star was found to lose speed and height as it aged, and Universal Brooms went out of business in 1978. In 1967 the broom world was galvanised by the formation of the Nimbus Racing Broom Company. Nothing like the Nimbus 1000 had ever been seen before. Reaching speeds of up to a hundred miles per hour, capable of turning 360 degrees at a fixed point in midair, the Nimbus combined the reliability of the old Oakshaft 79 with the easy handling of the best Cleansweeps. The Nimbus immediately became the broom preferred by professional Quidditch teams across Europe, and the subsequent models (1001, 1500, and 1700) have kept the Nimbus Racing Broom Company at the top of the field.

The Twigger 90, first produced in 1990, was intended by its manufacturers Flyte and Barker to replace the Nimbus as market leader. However, though highly finished and including a number of new gimmicks such as an inbuilt Warning Whistle and SelfStraightening Brush, the Twigger has been found to warp under high speeds and has gained the unlucky reputation of being flown by wizards with more Galleons than sense.