The nominees for the 2025 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award have been announced.
The list is comprised of Lionesses Euro 2025-winning duo Hannah Hampton and Chloe Kelly, Red Roses World Cup-winner Ellie Kildunne, darts phenom Luke Littler, golf superstar Rory McIlroy and newly-crowned Formula One world champion Lando Norris.
Keely Hodgkinson was crowned last year’s SPOTY winner after securing Olympic 800m gold in Paris and retaining her European title.
This month’s award - voted on by the public - will be handed out live alongside a number of other prizes in a televised ceremony held at MediaCityUK in Salford on Thursday, December 18, with McIlroy the current favourite to win for the first time.
Here is a closer look at the six nominees for BBC Sports Personality of the Year....
Rory McIlroy
McIlroy is currently the odds-on favourite to be crowned SPOTY winner for 2025.
The Northern Irish golfer completed a lifelong ambition by winning the Masters in dramatic fashion in April to complete a career Grand Slam.
McIlroy, who just last year slammed the Sports Personality of the Year award as a “popularity contest”, followed up his success at Augusta by helping guide Team Europe to the Ryder Cup on US soil.
McIlroy would become the first golfer to win the award since Nick Faldo in 1989.
Lando Norris
Fresh from being crowned the first British F1 champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2020, Norris is among McIlroy’s main rivals for SPOTY honours.
The McLaren star ended Max Verstappen’s four-year championship reign in a final-race shootout in Abu Dhabi last weekend.
Norris - the 11th British driver to lift arguably the most coveted prize in motorsport - would become the first F1 star to win Sports Personality of the Year since Hamilton did it for the second time in his illustrious career five years ago.
Chloe Kelly
Kelly was only named in the starting lineup once during England’s Euro 2025-winning campaign in the summer.
However, the Arsenal forward - who also scored the extra-time winner in the 2022 final at Wembley - played a pivotal role off the bench as the Lionesses retained their title by beating Spain on penalties in the final, netting the winning spot-kick.
Kelly’s nomination for Sports Personality of the Year caps a remarkable 12 months in which she also helped Arsenal to win the Champions League and finished fifth in the vote for the Women’s Ballon d’Or.
Luke Littler
Littler made more history earlier this year as he became the youngest darts world champion of all time, aged just 17.
‘The Nuke’, who rose to take the world No1 spot in November after winning a number of other titles including the Grand Slam of Darts, will be looking to follow up his success with another world title at Alexandra Palace next month.
This is Littler’s second nomination for Sports Personality of the Year after finishing second in 2024, behind Hodgkinson.
Hannah Hampton
England’s penalty shootout hero at the Euros, Hampton more than vindicated her place in the side after taking over from 2022 Sports Personality of the Year winner Mary Earps as the Lionesses’ No1.
Hampton sealed a fantastic year by winning the Yashin Trophy for the world’s best female goalkeeper at the Ballon d’Or awards.
As well as her heroics in goal for England, Hampton helped Chelsea secure a domestic treble and was the joint-winner of the WSL’s Golden Glove award with 13 clean sheets in 22 games.
Ellie Kildunne
The face of England’s Rugby World Cup triumph on home soil this summer, Kildunne is an outside bet for Sports Personality of the Year.
Her dazzling solo try in the final against Canada at Twickenham underlined her ability and secured a historic victory for the Red Roses in front of an 81,000-strong world-record crowd for a women’s rugby game.
The Harlequins full-back also helped England to secure a Six Nations Grand Slam win earlier in the year.
BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2025 odds
To win
Rory McIlroy: 8/15
Lando Norris: 10/3
Chloe Kelly: 5/1
Luke Littler: 20/1
Hannah Hampton: 40/1
Ellie Kildunne: 80/1
(Odds via SkyBet, subject to change).
