If you’ve ever stayed up late refreshing a Twitter feed to see if your favorite point guard or sprinter nabbed a "Player of the Year" trophy, you know the frustration. One minute they’re leading the league in every meaningful stat, and the next, some "panel of experts" hands the hardware to a guy who missed ten games with a hamstring tweak. It feels rigged. Honestly, it’s usually just complicated. The athlete of the year org vote isn’t a single thing; it’s a chaotic web of different organizations—from the Associated Press (AP) to World Athletics—each using wildly different rulebooks to decide who gets the crown.
Most people think it’s a simple popularity contest. It’s not. Well, sometimes it is, but even then, there are layers. You have the "prestige" votes where a bunch of salty sportswriters in a dimly lit room decide the fate of a season. Then you have the "fan-powered" votes where K-pop stans and nationalistic fervor can catapult a dark horse to the top of the podium.
How the Heavy Hitters Actually Handle the Athlete of the Year Org Vote
Let’s talk about the big ones. The Associated Press has been doing this since 1931. Their process is old-school. A panel of AP sports editors and writers from across the U.S. casts ballots. Because it’s an American-centric org, the winners are almost always from the NFL, NBA, or MLB. It’s why you’ll see someone like LeBron James or Simone Biles win multiple times while a world-class cricketer or rugby star doesn’t even get a sniff.
Then you have the Laureus World Sports Awards. This is the "Oscars of Sport." Their athlete of the year org vote is a two-step grind. First, over 1,000 sports media members from 70+ countries vote to create a shortlist. Then, the Laureus World Sports Academy—a group of 69 literal legends like Michael Johnson and Martina Navratilova—votes for the winners. It’s a "legends judging legends" vibe. If you haven't impressed the old guard, you aren't winning a Laureus.
The World Games: A Different Beast
The International World Games Association (IWGA) runs a very specific kind of vote at theworldgames.org. This one is interesting because it’s almost entirely in your hands. For the 2025/2026 cycle, the voting opened on January 12.
Here is how that specific athlete of the year org vote works:
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- You can vote every 24 hours.
- You must pick two candidates.
- Your first choice gets two votes.
- Your second choice gets one vote.
- If you only pick one person, the vote doesn't count.
It’s a clever way to stop people from just spamming their one favorite athlete. It forces you to actually look at the list—which includes everything from Squash stars like Satomi Watanabe to Flag Football heroes like Victoria Chavez. On January 26, 2026, they do a "halfway elimination" where only the top 10 keep going.
World Athletics and the 50-25-25 Split
World Athletics (the track and field folks) changed the game recently. They realized that letting fans have 100% of the power results in "botting" or just whichever country has the most active social media users winning.
To fix this, their athlete of the year org vote uses a weighted system. The World Athletics Council’s vote counts for 50% of the final result. The "World Athletics Family" (coaches, journalists, etc.) counts for 25%. The remaining 25% comes from the public. Public voting happens on Facebook, Instagram, and X. A "like" or a "repost" counts as a vote.
It’s basically a way to ensure that a 100m sprinter who broke a world record doesn't lose to a popular marathoner who had a "decent" year but has 5 million Instagram followers. It balances the "eye test" of experts with the "hype" of the fans.
The "Org" Part: Why Governance Matters
The reason these votes are so divisive is the "Org" behind them. Each organization has an agenda.
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USA Basketball’s annual awards, for instance, focus on "service to the jersey." You could be the MVP of the NBA, but if you didn't show up for the FIBA World Cup or the Olympics, you aren't winning their Male Athlete of the Year. In 2024, Kevin Durant was a massive contender not just because he’s KD, but because he became the first American male to win four Olympic golds. The athlete of the year org vote there rewards loyalty and international dominance, not just a high scoring average in the regular season.
Then you have the ESPYs. ESPN’s awards are a mix of "The Academy" (their own nominating committee) and fan voting. They love a narrative. If an athlete overcame a massive injury or had a "moment" that went viral, they have a massive edge. It’s less about the spreadsheet and more about the soul.
Why the "Youth" Vote is Growing
There is a site specifically called athleteoftheyear.org that focuses on young talent. This isn't about LeBron; it’s about high school and college kids. Their athlete of the year org vote involves a massive public bracket.
They use a tiered elimination system:
- Top 20 cut
- Top 15 cut
- Top 10 cut
Parents and local communities go absolutely wild for this. It’s a digital popularity contest that actually has stakes, often involving scholarships or massive exposure for kids looking to get recruited. But it’s also where the "dark side" of voting comes in. When votes can be "bought" through donations (which some charity-linked votes allow), it becomes a question of who has the wealthiest booster club, not who has the best jumper.
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The Misconception of "Unanimous"
We love the word "unanimous." It sounds definitive. But in an athlete of the year org vote, it’s incredibly rare. The last time the AP had a near-consensus was probably someone like Tiger Woods in his prime or Wayne Gretzky.
Usually, there’s a "split." For example, if two NFL quarterbacks have historic seasons, they’ll cannibalize each other’s votes. This often allows a dark horse—maybe a dominant tennis player or a record-breaking swimmer—to sneak through the middle and take the trophy because the "mainstream" vote was divided.
Actionable Steps for the Next Voting Cycle
If you actually want your favorite athlete to win one of these, you can’t just yell into the void of the internet. You have to play the specific game the org has set up.
- Check the weighting: If it’s a World Athletics vote, go to their official social media pages and "repost" the specific graphic. Don’t just tweet their name; that doesn’t count.
- The 24-Hour Rule: For IWGA (The World Games), set a literal alarm. Since you can vote every 24 hours, missing a day is effectively losing two votes for your top pick.
- Register Early: Many orgs, like World Athletics+, require you to be a registered member for your vote to count in the final round. Do this weeks in advance so you don't get stuck in a "verify your email" loop five minutes before the deadline.
- Read the Bylaws: Organizations like the Pro Football Hall of Fame or the AP have specific "eligibility windows." If your athlete’s best game happened on January 2nd, and the voting period ended on December 31st, you’re wasting your time.
The athlete of the year org vote is a mix of bureaucracy, math, and pure emotion. It’s never going to be perfectly fair, because "best" is a subjective word. But understanding who is holding the pen—whether it’s a retired legend, a bored editor, or a teenager with five burner accounts—is the only way to make sense of why the trophy ends up where it does.
The next major milestone is February 2, 2026, when the IWGA crowns its winner. If you're planning to influence that, you've got a window of time right now to make those daily 2-for-1 votes count. No excuses.