You know I was just thinking about some of the people on that list, I.e. Athletes who the BBC seem to be in love with and think everyone else is too, and wondering why isn't Danny Kent on there? For those who don't know him, he is a motorbike racer who this year won Britains first grand prix world championship in I think either 36 or 38 years, I forget when Barry sheenes last one was. He has surely achieved more in 2015 than say Jessica Ennis or Mo Farah?

Going off on a bit of a tangent here, but I wonder if it would be possible to use a 'dialler' type system as used in outbound call centres to create mass votes..... If so, would it be worth it for a sponsor or rich RL owner to pay for it? By my reckoning, 15p a vote, plus the cost of running a dialler for 1 night, I reckon £20k-ish would get you 100k votes.... £20k for prime time BBC advertising of RL and then all the associated national press coverage.... Hell, I'd say it would even be worth the RFL looking to fund it (if possible)...

I know it's cheating, but I was always taught 'if you're not cheating, you're not trying....'....

Seriously though, Sinfield would hate winning it that way - but it would be for the greater good of our game.

The number of votes to get in the top 3 in the last few years have been....


2014 -
Lewis Hamilton - 209,920
Rory McIlroy - 123,745
Jo Pavey - 99,913

2013 -
Andy Murray - 401,470
Leigh Halfpenny - 65,913
AP McCoy - 57,854

2012 -
Bradley Wiggins - 492,064
Jessica Ennis - 372,765
Andy Murray - 230,444
(Higher than usual this year probably down to the massive Olympic year)

2011 -
Mark Cavendish - 160,152
Darren Clarke - 42,188
Mo Farah - 29,780

2010 -
AP McCoy - 293,152
Phil Taylor - 72,095
Jessica Ennis - 62,953

Apart from the unusually high 2012 because of the massive success of the Olympics then in most of those years 3rd place is very do-able. The advantage it looks like Sinfield will have is mass voting. More people will vote for the likes of Murray or Ennis-Hill, but they'll probably vote once or twice. Sinfield it seems like will have a significant amount of people voting 10/15 times if not more for him (and at only 15p a go then why not?)

Really depends who and how many tune in to watch the show and then bother to vote. As shown above some years (particularly 2011) seemingly people weren't as fussed about picking up the phone. Often people will say they think "so and so" should win but many don't actually go ahead and bother to vote.

Given that there is no out and out obvious winner, and it's not been an Olympic year/year of major events, I think it'll be one of the lower turnouts...

That both Murray and Hamilton have won it recently I think will lead to a bit of apathy from their particular sports fan base (Hamilton has dropped comfortably back over the weeks to around 33/1). Ennis-Hill has the problem of their being 3 athletics nominees with Farah and Rutherford splitting the athletics vote. Fury is the wildcard at 4th favourite and really don't know what kind of total he'll get after all the aggro his views have caused.

I can't find the vote page, can someone link it please

Quote saintcj="saintcj"I can't find the vote page, can someone link it please'" m.bbc.co.uk/sport/sports-personality/35088225 You can't vote yet but you can register in advance. You can only vote while the programme is on live on BBC. Same goes for phone votes, they give the number to ring out on the programme.

Quote saintcj="saintcj"I can't find the vote page, can someone link it please'" m.bbc.co.uk/sport/sports-personality/35088225 You can't vote yet but you can register in advance. You can only vote while the programme is on live on BBC. Same goes for phone votes, they give the number to ring out on the programme.

I'm out of the country so if someone could post that on every forum around the time. That would be good.

The BBC's love of all things athletics really gets on my nerves, in fact most TV channels have some sort of twisted obsession with them and they actually believe 100% of the public feel the same. I couldn't give a monkey's. When they pop up as panelists on comedy quiz shows it's beyond irritating, and it's especially annoying if the presenter does the token "have you brought your medal with you?". There seems to be this theory among TV types that if you're good at something practical or physical in life, you must be a natural on TV. Tom Kerridge - a great chef but he's as much suited to TV presenting as an elephant is to flying. Alan Sugar, Alex Polizzi and the rest of the business bods who hustle their way onto the small screen - successful in business but about as much charisma on TV as jobsworth traffic wardens.

Anyway, I'll be voting for Kev.

Absolute coincidence that it's one of the few sports the BBC have a virtual monopoly on live coverage of, honest...

Jessica Ennis-Hill got Gold in the World Championships, after [uhaving a baby[/u.
That is a massive achievement.
I'm not saying Kent doesn't deserve a nomination, but Ennis has done a lot this year to deserve her nomination imho.

Good luck to him. A fantastic career on the pitch and has undoubtedly helped shape the Leeds club off it. His legacy from the philosophy and leadership he brought with him will be lingering around that club like a bad smell for years.

I'll certainly be 'buying him a pint' on the night, it'll be good for the sport to get that level of recognition for a change.