Creation and early years The
BBC's Sports Personality of the Year was created by
Paul Fox, who came up with the idea while he was editor of the magazine show
Sportsview. The first award ceremony took place as part of a special gala edition of
Sportsview held at the
Savoy Hotel on 30 December 1954. The show lasted 45 minutes and was presented by
Peter Dimmock. The ceremony was combined with two other awards, the sportsman and sportswoman of the year, which were determined by votes through the
Sporting Record newspaper. The newspaper had presented their sportsman of the year award since 1946, to which they later added a sportswoman of the year award. The award for the 1953
Sporting Record winners had been broadcast on BBC radio in April 1954. Voting for the BBC award was by postcard, and rules presented in a
Radio Times article stipulated that nominations were restricted to athletes who had featured on the
Sportsview programme since April. For the inaugural BBC Sportsperson of the Year award, 14,517 votes were cast and
Christopher Chataway beat fellow athlete
Roger Bannister. The following year the show was renamed
Sports Review of the Year and given a longer duration of 75 minutes. From 1959 the BBC award ceremony was separated from the sportsman and sportswoman of the year awards.
1960s In 1960 Dimmock presented the show, and introduced two new awards:
David Coleman joined the show the following year and remained a co-presenter until 1983. Swimmer
Anita Lonsbrough became the first female recipient of the main award in 1962; females won it in the following two years as well.
Frank Bough took over as presenter in 1964 and presented Sports Review for 18 years. In 1969, a new
Manager of the Year award was given to
Don Revie for his achievements with
Leeds United, the only occasion it was presented. In the following year boxer
Henry Cooper became the first person to win the main award twice, having already won in 1967.
1970s and 1980s During the 1970s Bough and Coleman presided over the ceremony alongside
Jimmy Hill,
Cliff Morgan,
Kenneth Wolstenholme,
Des Lynam took over as main host from Bough in 1983, and presided over figure skating duo
Torvill and Dean's win the following year, when they became the first non-individual winners of the main award.
Steve Rider replaced Carpenter as co-host in 1986, at which a
Special Team Award was presented to Great Britain men's
4 × 400 m relay team. In the 1980s,
Steve Davis finished in the top three on five occasions, including one win in 1988.
1990s In 1991, angler
Bob Nudd received the most votes following a campaign in the
Angling Times. However, the BBC deemed this to be against the rules and refused to acknowledge his votes, allowing athlete
Liz McColgan to win the award. The following year racing driver
Nigel Mansell became the second person to win the main award twice, having won his first in 1986.
Sue Barker presented the show for the first time in 1994, at which racing driver
Damon Hill won the first of his two awards, the second coming two years later. Boxer
Frank Bruno was the inaugural winner of the
Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, and as of 2014 there have been 15 recipients of the award. In 1999 the show was renamed
Sports Personality of the Year, They were supported that year by
John Inverdale and
Clare Balding. The ceremony introduced a further three regular awards:
Coach of the Year,
Newcomer of the Year, and a
Helen Rollason Award for "outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity". In a one-off award, boxer
Muhammad Ali was voted as the
Sports Personality of the Century.
2000s 50th anniversary (2003) On 1 November 2003,
BBC Books published "BBC Sports Personality of the Year 50th Anniversary" (), written by Steve Rider and Martyn Smith, to mark the golden anniversary of the show. Leading up to the anniversary show on 14 December 2003, a series of five half-hour special programmes, entitled
Simply The Best – Sports Personality, were broadcast. Hosted by Gary Lineker, the episodes were shown on
BBC One for five consecutive nights from 8–12 December 2003; each covered one decade of Sports Personality history. At the end of each programme, viewers voted for their favourite Sports Personality winner from the decade covered; the five winners then went onto a shortlist for one of two special
50th Anniversary awards. From this shortlist, rower
Steve Redgrave was voted
Golden Sports Personality of the Year by the public. The
England World Cup-winning
team of 1966 won a
Team of the Decades award, voted for by representatives from all previous
Teams of the Year. That year,
Adrian Chiles joined the show and co-presented alongside Barker and Lineker for two years. The 2007 ceremony was the first of a two-year sponsorship deal with
Britvic's brand
Robinsons, and the capacity of the NEC was increased from 5,000 to 8,000. The event sold out, but the sponsorship deal was shortened to one year after complaints by
ITV and RadioCentre caused the
BBC Trust to rule in that "Editorial Guidelines were breached and the editorial integrity of the BBC compromised by giving the impression to licence fee payers via Sports Personality of the Year that part of a BBC service had been sponsored." They decided that the 2008 awards should not be broadcast as a sponsored event, and no new sponsorship deal was negotiated after the Britvic deal expired. In , the BBC announced that the 2008 Sports Personality of the Year event would be held at the
Echo Arena,
Liverpool. One reason for the move to Liverpool was to allow greater numbers to view the show live, as the 10,600-seater venue in Liverpool had a bigger capacity than the NEC. However, it was announced on 2009 that the show would be staged at the
Sheffield Arena, after the city won the hosting rights over Cardiff.
2010s The
2010 ceremony was held in Birmingham's
LG Arena with approximately 12,000 guests. The
ceremony in 2011 was held at Salford's
dock10 Studios within
MediaCityUK. The
2012 ceremony took place at
ExCeL London, which had been one of the major venues for both the
Olympics and
Paralympics earlier that year. The
60th ceremony in 2013 was held at the
First Direct Arena in Leeds. In
2014, the ceremony was held in Scotland for the first time in its history, at The
SSE Hydro in Glasgow, which had served as a host venue during the
Commonwealth Games earlier in the year. In
2015, the ceremony was held in Northern Ireland for the first time, at the
SSE Arena in Belfast, on 20 December. The event returned to Birmingham and Liverpool in
2016 and
2017 respectively. The 2018 ceremony took place in Birmingham, marking the city's fifth time hosting the event (3rd time at the same venue). In 2018 the
BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year award was renamed World Sport Star of the Year. Along with the change of name, votes could be cast from outside of the UK for the first time. In addition a new award was announced: Greatest Sporting Moment of the Year. For the main award, the nominees would not be announced until the show itself. The
2019 ceremony took place in
The Event Complex in
Aberdeen.
2020s The
2020 ceremony took place on 20 December at the
dock10 studios in Salford. Despite the national COVID-19 restrictions, the event was broadcast live on BBC One and hosted by Lineker, Balding,
Gabby Logan and for the first time,
Alex Scott. Boxer
Tyson Fury created controversy ahead of the awards by rejecting his nomination and instructing his legal team to force the BBC to exclude him from the shortlist. Despite his protestations, Fury remained on the shortlist for the trophy which was won for the second time by
Lewis Hamilton. Also awarded that year was the Expert Panel Special Award, awarded to footballer
Marcus Rashford for his campaign against child food poverty. In May 2024, it was announced that under the BBC's "competitive tender" policy, Whisper North had won the tender to produce the ceremony. ==Trophy==