Thank you, you’re right - I was getting my "four-by"s mixed up.
Agreed. SPOTY is about who gets people talking, watching, and not-coincidentally buying magazines. It’s only tangentially about recognizing sporting excellence.
My serious guess for this year is Biles.
Change:
5. If the Dodgers win the World Series: Shohei Ohtani - 40/40 before September 1 is impressive.
6. Curry, LeBron, and maybe Kevin Durant.
I’d love it to be Simone Biles, especially given all the completely undeserved crap she got from Tokyo, and it’d be even nicer for SI to give a full-throated condemnation of social media ignoramuses as opposed to the pitiful “controversy” mincing from every other major media outlet. Two marks against that, however: 1. While she was excellent, she (completely understandably) wasn’t quite the transcendent superhuman she was pre-Tokyo, and 2. Suni Lee played a big part in the team’s success and also had the kind of tearjerker comeback story magazines love. Also, there were quite a few other Olympians who made plenty of noise, particularly in track, and I’m thinking there’s going to be some pressure to honor Jordan Chiles as a back-pat for being unjustly stripped of a bronze. (Which could’ve been completely avoided, incidentally, if they got their crap together BEFORE having the damn medal ceremony, but that’s another thread.) So I’m going with “America’s female Olympic superstars”, which would be just fine with me.
My sentimental pick would be Scottie Scheffler (friendly reminder of that little “controversy” at the PGA Championship). Speaking from harsh experience, there are few things in this world worse than being completely innocent and having to live under a cloud of suspicion and accusation due to events completely out of your control. We live in an era where one utterly made-up accusation, one nugget of absolute steaming BS that a lot of people believe is true, or one correction that arrives a few days too late can destroy a person’s life permanently. If he chose to respond by withdrawing and launching a blistering tirade at the league for not getting behind one of its top stars, then took a hiatus to deal with the trauma, I would’ve understood completely. I’ve had to take hiatuses for far less. So what does he do? Finishes out the tournament in the top 10, completely clear his name, and play like an absolute champ for the rest of the season. That’s downright inspirational.
And my screwball pick. 
I could, no-joke, see Mike Tyson getting it if he beats the everloving crap out of Jake Paul this November. I don’t think this has any chance of happening, however…one thing I learned about obnoxious scumbags is that the ones that survive to adulthood know how to protect themselves (particularly the ones who enter the fight game themselves). And despite some nice shadowboxing moves, I’m not convinced that Tyson has the stamina to bring the thunder for a whole fight. My guess is that there’s some fireworks in the first round and then it devolves into a paw-and-clinchfest, and the ending is totally unsatisfying and both men walk out without a scratch. It seems almost inevitable at this point.
(All this, of course, is assuming that they don’t just give it to a football player. I have no illusions about what we’re dealing with here.)
Now that the World Series is over, it’s time for my “final” ranking on who I think is going to get it:
A few longshots:
An Ohtani/Freddie Freeman combo could be in the running which I’d prefer over the entire Dodgers team.
Doubt it would be the team as a whole, especially with Ohtani’s 50-50 season. I hesitate to include Freeman, as what did he do during the regular season?
I think Caitlin Clark has to be it, surely? No one had a comparable impact on their sport.
The story with his son and taking time off from baseball in the middle of a pennant race would add to his appeal and then the World Series performance coming later.
As a media story Clark was pushed further into the spotlight. I think Biles is more deserving but the audience forgets the Olympics the minute they are over.
This is one of the first years in a long time that no one in tennis deserves it. I have long thought that Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic should have each been picked at some point.
This year? We are at the end of that. I think even Djokovic won zero Grand Slams this year.
Biles is the greater athlete so far, and I can see her winning it in part as credit for her career dominance. That’s well precedented - Derek Jeter in 2009, for instance, or Steph Curry two years ago. Clark’s candidacy has to be based on the remarkable, enormous impact she had on the popularity of the WNBA and women’s basketball, for which there is no recent precedent.
SI’s choice last year was so awful and inexplicable that they can’t really do worse.
Shohei Ohtani isn’t American, so he won’t win. Aaron Judge would have been a candidate but his dreadful World Series killed that chance.
I lean towards Clark or Biles, for these exact reasons.
It looks like they’re going back to having an actual award ceremony, which will be January 7 at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. This is a departure from the past, where the award would be given out before the end of the year.
Why do I have the feeling they’re waiting until that date because they think the Kansas City Chiefs will have a bye in the first round of the playoffs, so it won’t disrupt their schedule if Mahomes and possibly Kelce as well will be there? (Speaking of whom, What a Coincidence, Taylor Swift’s concert tour just ended.)
Then again, Mahomes is on the December cover, and you would think (a) they would know who the winner is by now, and (b) they wouldn’t want him on the cover twice in a row.
Yes, I am aware that Caitlin Clark is Time magazine’s “Athlete of the Year,” but that is an entirely separate award with an entirely separate set of credentials.
Could be the Kelce brothers, then. They’ve both been relatively high profile this last year
Does SI still publish printed magazines?
I’d wager on Clark, if I were a betting person. Spring and Summer of this year, she was the biggest story in sports.
Why is this a coincidence? The Eras Tour was scheduled to end in November for the last year.
The last concert was on December 8. Having it in January gives her plenty of time to show up.
Yes, although only monthly now.
I find Clark to be odd in that her story is that she was a story? I don’t follow women’s basketball, but my dad was pissed about her being left off the olympic team (because right wing media was claiming it was anti-white racism; he couldn’t get a single shit about women’s basketball). So I looked into her stats, and she had a good season, but wasn’t a league MVP contender. Enough in her position ahead of her that leaving her off the team seems reasonable. Might not look it in hindsight, like Shaq.
Regarding Ohtani not being likely because he’s foreign; how much of that is because football and basketball are overwhelmingly American? Brief glance at the list shows 2 foreign born baseball players in the last 26 years.