Award for athletes, presented by BBC
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award Awarded for Excellence in sporting achievement Country United Kingdom Presented by BBC Sport Formerly called Sportsview Personality of the Year First award 30 December 1954; 71 years ago (1954-12-30 ) Most recent winner Rory McIlroy (2025 ;Golf )Website Official website
TheBBC Sports Personality of the Year Award is the main award of theBBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony, which takes place each December. The winner is the sportsperson, judged by a public vote, to have achieved the most that year. The recipient must either be British or reside and play a significant amount of their sport in the United Kingdom. The winner is selected from a predetermined shortlist. The most recent award-winner is golferRory McIlroy , who won the2025 award .
Sports Personality of the Year was created byPaul Fox , who thought of the idea while he was editor of the magazine showSportsview Sportsview , and was presented byPeter Dimmock .[ 1] Radio Times Sportsview programme since April. Approximately 14,500 votes were cast, andChristopher Chataway beatRoger Bannister to win the inaugural BBC Sportsview's Personality of the Year Award.[ 2]
Nomination procedure [ edit ] The shortlist is announced a few weeks before the award ceremony, and the winner is determined on the night by a public telephone and on-line vote. Prior to 2012, a panel of 30 sports journalists each submitted a list of 10 contenders. From these contenders a shortlist of ten nominees was determined. This method was criticized following the selection of an all-male shortlist in 2011. The selection process for contenders was changed for the 2012 and subsequent awards by the introduction of an expert panel. The panel produces a shortlist that reflects UK sporting achievements on the national and/or international stage, represents the breadth and depth of UK sports and takes into account 'impact' within and beyond the sport or sporting achievement in question.
Five people have won the award more than once: tennis playerAndy Murray is the only person to have won three times and the only person to have won in consecutive years, whileboxer Henry Cooper andFormula One driversNigel Mansell ,Lewis Hamilton andDamon Hill have each won twice.[ 3]
Princess Anne (1971) and her daughterZara Phillips (2006) are the only award-winners to be members of the same family. The oldest recipient of the award isDai Rees , who won in 1957 aged 44.Ian Black , who won the following year, aged 17, is the youngest winner.[ 3] Torvill and Dean , who won in 1984, are the only non-individual winners of the award, so in the 66 years of the award there have been 67 recipients; of these 14 have been female.[ 4] athletics has the highest representation, with 17 recipients. Counting Torvill and Dean separately, there have been 48 English winners of the award, six Scottish,[ 5] [ 6] [ 7] [ 8]
This table lists the total number of awards won by the winner's sport.
Accurate up to and including the 2025 award.
By number of awards [ edit ] The below table lists all people who have finished in the top three places more than once.
This table lists the total number of awards won by the winner's gender. The figure-skating couple Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean are counted as a single mixed-gender winner.
Accurate up-to and including the 2025 award.
Winners by gender Gender First place(s) Second place(s) Third place(s) Total placing(s) Male 55 58 50 163 Female 16 11 20 47 Mixed 1 1 0 2 Total 72 70 70 212
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