The BBC announced their shortlist for the 2016 SPOTY Award and as expected it is dominated by Olympians & Paralympians and has been increased to 16 Nominees
The Shortlist is:
Nicola Adams
Gareth Bale
Alistair Brownlee
Sophie Christiansen
Kadeena Cox
Mo Farah
Jason Kenny
Laura Kenny (nee Trott)
Andy Murray
Adam Peaty
Kate Richardson-Walsh
Nick Skelton
Dame Sarah Storey
Jamie Vardy
Max Whitlock
Danny Willett
Some noticeable absentees namely Alistair Cook, Carl Frampton, Chris Froome and members of the England Rugby Team.
Just to add to my irrational hatred of The One Show tonight the winner of the Young Sports Personality Award was announced. Really can't see the logic in not waiting till Sunday to announce that award - they should have plenty of time to present 7-8 awards within the show (and will probably present it during the show anyway).
You could argue it's been done because
a) Tom and Claudia were on. Two guests who fall (ironically given their sports!) into the 'young sports person' category
b) Putting them on the One Show also gets an audience who wouldn't normally consider watching the main SPOTY programme - so an additional promotion within the BBC One family.
On a side issue. Without wishing to decend into a Daily Heil anti-BBC rant, but we had the BBC Music Awards on Monday, and we have the SPOTY on Sunday.
Wouldn't it be more cost effective for BBC Events to have the Music Awards on Friday, then reconfigure the stage on the Saturday and do the Sports Personality bash from the same venue on the Sunday evening?
Same arena, same staging crew, same OBU crews, same broadcaster.
Less than 3m watched the BBC Music Awards and it didn't do much better last year. Would be more cost effective to just scrap them.
As for point b - it may put it front and centre to people who wouldn't usually watch SPOTY but people who are interested in SPOTY but would never watch the One Show miss out, and that's a bigger issue IMO. They can easily promote SPOTY within The One Show and other BBC programming without giving out awards themselves.
TL
toby lerone 2016
I seemed to have trouble getting onto this site earlier so here is the Awards tonight;
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award
1. Andy Murray
2. Alistair Brownlee
3. Nick Skelton
BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year: Simone Biles
BBC Sports Personality Team of the Year Award: Leicester City F.C.
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award: Michael Phelps
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Coach Award: Claudio Ranieri
BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year: Ellie Robinson
Helen Rollason Award: Ben Smith
Unsung Hero: Marcellus Baz
Here's the full breakdown of votes for the SPOTY Award itself:
Andy Murray 247,149
Alistair Brownlee 121,665
Nick Skelton 109,197
Mo Farah 54,476
Sophie Christiansen 37,284
Kate Richardson-Walsh 34,604
Max Whitlock 32,858
Laura Kenny 31,781
Jamie Vardy 25,020
Jason Kenny 12,376
Adam Peaty 11,129
Gareth Bale 10,786
Nicola Adams 7,182
Kadeena Cox 5,574
Dame Sarah Storey 3,580
Danny Willett 2,227
Less than 3m watched the BBC Music Awards and it didn't do much better last year.
Would be more cost effective to just scrap them.
I really can't see much point in the BBC Music Awards, as entertaining as they might be. To me, it is as though they're trying to make a music awards show as prestigious as The Brit Awards based solely on the prestigiousness of "The BBC", when they could have tried doing this shortly after The Brit Awards moved to ITV over 20 years ago
I thought it was a great event and a good venue. Should pigs fly and the uk ever win Eurovision again, I'd say it was about right for the song contest now it's using slightly smaller venues again (Although of course the last BBC hosting was in Birmingham at the NIA so maybe that wouldn't be the first choice)