Bookies Like Just Two People for BBC Sports Personality 2024
The BBC has announced its Sports Personality of the Year shortlist. Bookmakers cannot see beyond Luke Littler and Keely Hodgkinson.
Keely Hodgkinson in winning action at the 2024 Paris Olympics. © Getty Images
Key Facts:
- Six shortlisted contenders for the 2024 Sports Personality of the Year award.
- Voting will take place during the live show on BBC One on Tuesday, 17 December.
- Para-cyclist Sarah Storey gets her fourth nomination, but all-time greatest cyclist, Mark Cavendish, misses out.
- Keely Hodgkinson, 800-metre gold medal winner at the Paris Olympics, is favourite to take the prize.
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) award debuted in 1954 when runners Chris Chataway and Roger Bannister claimed first and second. Seventy years later, another runner, Keely Hodgkinson, is expected to win the award.
This summer, the 22-year-old Mancunian gave Team GB its first Olympic track title since Mo Farah completed the 5,000-metre and 10,000-metre double at the Rio Games in 2016. Hodgkinson is only the tenth British woman to win an athletics gold at an Olympics.
Claiming gold at the 2024 European Athletics Championships in Rome, Hodgkinson has strong credentials. Paula Radcliffe (2002) and Kelly Holmes (2004), who also represent track and field athletics, are previous SPOTY winners.
Form students and her supporters will also be encouraged to know that athletes have won Sports Personality of the Year 18 times in the past – more than double the number of winners from any other sport.
6/4 Littler Is Already a Winner
Offering 4/9 odds, the UK’s top gambling sites believe Hodgkinson has almost a 70 percent chance of winning the BBC’s famous award. However, some betting firms offer just 6/4 about teenage darts star Luke Littler hitting the bullseye.
Bidding to become the youngest winner since Scottish swimmer Ian Black in 1958, Littler shot to fame by reaching the final of Darts PDC World Championship at the start of the year. A record-breaking 3.7 million people watched the decider.
Littler had completed his GCSEs a few months earlier and was just 16 at the time. In the following 11 months, the Warrington ace won ten titles, including the Premier League and Grand Slam of Darts. His earnings for the year have surpassed £1.1 million.
Underlining his popularity in the UK. On Tuesday, it was announced that Littler sits third on Google’s list of ‘most searched people in UK in 2024’. He is placed ahead of Kier Starmer and one spot below Donald Trump. Interestingly, on Google’s ‘most searched for athletes in UK in 2024’, Littler tops the chart with no other SPOTY nominated athlete positioned within the top 10.
Alex Lee Is Best of the Underdogs
The best sports betting sites offer little hope to the four other athletes who have received a SPOTY nomination from a BBC-assembled judging panel. Its members include Laura Kenny (cyclist), Iwan Thomas (athletics), Ade Adepitan (wheelchair basketball), Nedum Onuoha (football), and Rory Best (rugby).
Quoted on 50/1 odds, Alex Lee has a fair chance of claiming a top-three SPOTY finish. The 26-year-old triathlete enjoyed an outstanding 2024 in which he won the World Championship and was one of Team GB’s 14 gold medallists at the Paris Olympics.
The Also Rans Include Joe Root
2013 was the last time that a footballer did not make the SPOTY shortlist. This year, it is Jude Bellingham’s turn to have an outing at Media City, Salford, for the BBC award ceremony. The sport’s last male winner was Ryan Giggs in 2009.
Priced 9/4 before England was beaten in the UEFA Euro 2024 final, the Real Madrid player is now the outsider of the SPOTY field. He can be backed on 200/1 odds – double those of Joe Root and Sarah Storey.
Root’s SPOTY credentials include surpassing Alastair Cook’s English record of 12,472 Test runs. He is fifth on the all-time list of Test run scorers and became the first Englishman to surpass 20,000 international runs across formats in 2024.
What Is the Storey Story?
In 2013, following the London Olympics, Sarah Storey was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to para-cycling. She received an MBE in 1998 and an OBE after the Beijing Olympics in 2009.
A SPOTY trophy is missing from her mantlepiece, and 2024 will represent the fourth time Storey has taken to the Salford stage. Born with an underdeveloped hand but talented enough to compete in able-bodied competition, Storey is Britain’s most successful Paralympian.
Now 47, Storey added two more gold medals to her collection – that already featured 17 Paralympic golds – at the Paris Games this summer. Remarkably, her first victories came as a para-swimmer in 1992.
Record-Breaking Greatest Moment Not Enough for Shortlist
The 2024 SPOTY final six have not met with universal approval. Social media posts condemned selectors for not shortlisting Mark Cavendish. In the summer, when breaking the all-time win record at the Tour de France, commentators described his 35th stage victory as “one of the greatest sporting moments in history.”
ITV went as far as to produce an alternative list of SPOTY contenders where Cavendish did feature. Luke Humphries, the reigning Darts World Champion who has achieved more than Luke Littler in 2024, was among those who made the ITV cut.
⭐️ 𝐀𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 ⭐️
James Anderson 🏏
Lando Norris 🏎️
Poppy Maskill 🏊♀️
Emma Finucane 🚴♀️
Luke Humphries 🎯
Mark Cavendish 🚴♂️#SPOTY pic.twitter.com/2OK7j8vRcX— ITV Sport (@ITVSport) December 9, 2024
What Is the Best SPOTY Bet?
Despite a para-athlete becoming a standing dish at the SPOTY awards, a nominated para-athlete has never made the final three of SPOTY. History does not bode well for Storey.
Jude Bellingham is another person who is easy to dismiss. His part in helping Real Madrid to La Liga and the Champions League success will not inspire viewers to pick up the phone and vote on his behalf.
On paper, Alex Lee is the obvious bronze medal recipient. He is a winner, whereas Joe Root is a run scorer. However, Cricket’s popularity amongst SPOTY voters should not be underestimated. Ben Stokes won the SPOTY award in 2019 and came second in 2022. Last year, Stuart Broad took the silver medal.
Ultimately, SPOTY 2024 is a showdown between Hodgkinson and Littler. The athlete was 1/5 to take the award in November, but as Littler has continued to accumulate trophies, bookies have pushed her odds out. He has shrunk markedly from the 6/1 odds available in July.
The last three SPOTY winners have been female, and a darts player has never won the SPOTY award. However, athletics is not as popular as it once was – just one SPOTY winner in the past two decades – while darts is enjoying unprecedented media coverage.
At the prices – and the UK’s gambling sites quote Littler on 9/4 – the teenager would appear the best bet despite favourites being on a SPOTY winning sequence of six.
