So Ryan Giggs is BBC Sports Personality of the Year. I must admit that I’m fairly indifferent about this fact. I’ve watched Giggs perform from the away supporters end at Old Trafford quite a few times over the years, and once even infiltrated the Stretford End to watch the Reds beat Blackburn Rovers on the day that England won the Rugby World Cup. Is Ryan Giggs, the greatest footballer in the Premier League? No. Is he the most popular footballer in the Premier League? No. Does he have an amazing and engaging personality? No. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a fantastic player, winning 11 Premier League titles medals is a feat that I doubt will ever be repeated, and I think that his lack of interest in fame and stardom is refreshing amongst a generation of footballers who seem to be as interested in gracing the pages of Grazia and Hello as winning titles. Had Giggs been up for the Lifetime Achievement award I may have understood. Herein lies the problem with the Sports Personality of the Year. It’s not necessarily about sporting performance – Manchester United have had much more stellar years than the 08/09 season. It’s not necessarily about personality – there aren’t too many among this year’s finalists who I consider to be engaging in press conferences or would make great dinner guests. It’s not about popularity – if you were to select the top 10 most popular British sports people from a public vote, I doubt you’d get much further than the 10 most popular footballers. So we end up with a list of 10 selected by a group of “respected” sports journos and editors based on whatever criteria they want to apply.
I’m willing to bet that when the viewing figures come out, the BBC show will have been absolutely slaughtered by the X Factor final. I’m no fan, but in a family of X Factor obsessives it’s hard to avoid and I have to admit that with a line up including George Michael and Sir Paul McCartney, the BBC were on a hiding to nothing.
Ryan Giggs won the popular vote, Manchester United being the best supported club in the world and being quite popular in the Principality, too, meant that he was my favourite to win. If the vote had been held on sporting achievement, then I think Mark Cavendish’s amazing season in which he won a “Monument”, the first Brit to have done so for over 40 years and then topped by 6 stage wins in the Tour would win it for me. If it was down to personality, then who knows? Princess Anne beat George Best to the title once.
The crucial question to make the award more relevant is how to better establish the list of the 10 nominees? Perhaps each sports governing body could nominate an individual based upon outstanding sporting achievement and this list then whittled down by popular vote? I don’t know if that would work, but it would surely recognise sporting achievement better than the current system. In its current form I think its rapidly heading towards the endangered list.
By the way, I thought Sir Paul’s performance was fantastic.
Update: the viewing figures for X Factor peaked at over 17 million viewers compared with a peak of 4.7 million for Sports Personality of the Year. (story on BBC website)
Categories:
Powered by FireStats