As always, the BBC Sports Personality Awards show has thrown up some serious debate. A quick look through social media, digital or print news and you'll see hundreds of opinions on last night's show expressed with varying degrees of class, open-mindedness and decency.
The purpose of this article isn't to add my two pennies' worth to the 'Leicester City vs GB Women's Hockey' argument (although I will refer to it), but to examine why awards like this always seem to elicit so much discussion.
The obvious answer is that the nature of the award gives everyone a reason to have an opinion. It's fundamentally difficult to challenge why someone has won a league trophy or a 'Golden Boot'. This silverware is given out on the basis of statistics, so our opinions don't come into play. However, when we try to answer subjective questions about who is 'the best,' our own biases - and perhaps more importantly, our emotions - start to affect the answer.
This is largely why it's basically impossible to find a definitive answer to single-sport debates like who should win the Ballon D'Or or 'Federer vs Nadal vs Djokovic vs Murray'. The team or individual we support, the qualities we particularly value or admire in a player, our age, nationality and gender may also impact (consciously or subconsciously) on our preferences, and indeed on the strength of our feelings.
We also love to try and decide who is the greatest of all time, but how can we truly compare Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Serena Williams while also trying to account for changes in technology, equipment, professionalism, social attitudes and different contemporary competitors? These variables also make it trickier to compare the achievements of Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt if we look beyond the simple statistics.
The Telegraph recently published the results of a project titled, 'The UK's Greatest Ever Sportsperson'. This throws another factor into the mix: how do we compare performers from different sports?
Our feelings about the Sports Personality Awards are complicated further by the fact that (despite its name) I'm not sure anyone really knows exactly what many of the SPOTY trophies are based on anymore. Is it about personality? Performance? Popularity?
So let's have a quick look at the debate about the 2016 SPOTY Team of the Year Award. It's difficult to directly compare the achievements of Leicester City across the course of a 38-game season against the GB Hockey Women's 100% win record and gold medal in Rio. Leicester were 5000/1 to win the Premier League before the season started; GB women were around 9/1 to win Olympic gold. Their journeys and their challenges were very different, but both of these teams have achieved amazing things in the last 12 months. Incidentally, so has every other team that was nominated for this SPOTY award.
The thing I haven't read anywhere in the debate this morning is that both Leicester and GB Hockey have achieved their success based on similar qualities: Trust in one another, commitment to and belief in a shared goal, and a few outstanding individual performances set against the backdrop of teamwork. Rather than comparing the differences between their achievements, wouldn't it be great if a few more people could identify the similarities?
Both teams will also face challenges in their quests to match the heights they have done in 2016. Leicester have struggled to get close to their performances last season in this year's Premier League, but have done well in the Champions League so far. The GB Hockey women will have to manage retirements, new players and the challenge of replicating their success in upcoming tournaments with the unfamiliar tag of 'favourites'.
The slightly muted reaction of Leicester City's players on winning the award seems to have contributed to some of the negative reactions. This may be contentious, but to be completely honest, I don't regard their reaction as being particularly important. You'd like to think the award means something to the recipient, but it isn't given out based on who wants it the most.
Meanwhile, I'm sure a few criticisms about the result are based on the fact this might have been an opportunity to buck the trend and celebrate a female sports team. However, I think SPOTY is one of the few mass-broadcast sports 'events' that is gender-balanced and I'd argue social change isn't the role of this particular award.
Ultimately, both teams have been extremely inspiring and exciting examples in their sports and beyond, and I have no doubt that not a single player would trade the Premier League trophy or an Olympic gold medal for the title of SPOTY Team of the Year.
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