BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2023

This is a fun article with a big point. The BBC not having Josh Kerr on the shortlist in 2023 was a total blunder. I love the BBC, but they have been off their game recently, and this is a prime example. How does the country that made the mile and 1,500m not recognize a Scotsman who wins the mile for Team GBR for the second year in a row? 

It is, well, puzzling.

Thanks, Stuart for this article. 

BBC Sports Personality of the Year

Josh Kerr has not been included in the shortlist to be voted by TV viewers for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY), and the sport is up in arms with Seb Coe tweeting: “No Josh Kerr on the list, are you having a laugh #SPOTY ? World Champion in the biggest global sporting event of 2023”.

UK Athletics chair Ian Beattie expressed his support for a newspaper article that called it “maybe the most glaring omission in the award’s 70-year history”.

The Guardian ran Sean Ingle’s story under the headline: “Josh Kerr ‘massively disappointed’ by BBC Sports Personality of the Year snub.”

For the record, the six candidates for Tuesday’s event are Cricketer Stuart Broad, jockey Frankie Dettori, footballer Mary Earps, wheelchair tennis player Alfie Hewett, athlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson and golfer Rory McIlroy. 

The event has been running since 1954. I confess that it used to be my favorite TV program of the year back in the day. When I say “back in the day,” I mean the days when live sport on television was rare, and the program give one the only opportunity to see the sports highlights of the previous year. In a world in which I have access to towards 20 sports channels, crammed with live sport and with YouTube giving me any sporting moment I’m looking for at the click of a mouse, SPOTY has, to some extent, lost its attraction. Going back to my childhood, of course one could only watch the programme live. Now, watching it on delay and fast-forwarding through the less interesting bits is a better option.

For all that, it is still a massively prestigious event to which one could be invited. Athletes love to attend.  Josh Kerr has accepted his invitation to attend, although he will just be in the audience.