The buzz around BBC Sports Personality of the Year award

Since the invention of Sky it became harder for the BBC to show highlights of sport that they didn’t televise. This meant the programme wasn’t as good as it used to be and as I’ve got older I’ve tended not to watch it so much.

I have to be honest and look up who won last year’s event and it was England women’s footballer Beth Mead. She was the player of the tournament and top scorer at Euro 2022, where the Lionesses defeated Germany in the final at Wembley to win England’s first major women’s football trophy. The 27-year-old also became the first women’s footballer to win the award.

This year another England women’s footballer won, their goalkeeper Mary Earps. Leading to a few people criticising why she won if she and England didn’t actually win the World Cup after losing to Spain in the final. Before we look at whether she was deserving or not let’s look at the criteria and the panel who drew up the shortlist as it’s something I had to look up.

The criteria of the shortlist should be that they:

• Reflect UK sporting achievements on the national and/or international stage;
• Represent the breadth and depth of UK sports;
• Take into account the ‘impact’ of the person’s sporting achievement beyond the sport in question.

The industry panel for this year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year included former Lioness and Euro 2022 winner Ellen White, ex-Olympian Colin Jackson, Paralympian Ellie Simmonds and former Scotland rugby union international Chris Paterson.

Sports journalists David Coverdale (Daily Mail), Rob Maul (The Sun) and Charlotte Harpur (The Athletic) were on the panel alongside Olympian Katherine Grainger, now Chair of UK Sport.
Representing the BBC were director of sport Barbara Slater, head of sport content Philip Bernie and Sports Personality of the Year executive producer Gabby Cook.

The Panel were given an extensive list of the top sports people from 2023 including information on their achievements, provided by the production team of Sports Personality of the Year. The Panel were also able to consider other potential candidates who were not on the list.

They chose, Stuart Broad (cricket), Frankie Dettori (horse racing), Alfie Hewett (wheelchair tennis), Katarina Johnson-Thompson (athletics) Rory Mcllroy (golf) and Mary Earps (Football).

On the night itself the award goes to the sports person whose sporting actions have most captured the UK public’s imagination during 2023. There’s an important word in that last sentence “public”. Let’s not forget it’s a public vote and they decide who wins. It’s a bit like a general election if you feel so passionately about something then use your vote. Two of the people who’ve been so critical of the winner have been Journalist Piers Morgan and former footballer Joey Barton. I wasn’t surprised about Barton as his views on pretty much everything are left field but I was surprised about Piers. Everyone as always is entitled to their opinion as long as you don’t get personal, which Barton in particular did. Interestingly though when asked, neither did vote so that sums it up for me.

Back to the winner Mary, she also won the World Cup tournament’s Golden Glove, the Best Women’s Goalkeeper at FIFA’s The Best awards and was named England Women’s Player of the Year. She stood up against Nike who wouldn’t release a replica shirt with her name on and when they eventually bowed to pressure she sold out twice in both October and December. A thoroughly deserving winner in my eyes.

Take care everybody and can I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year.