BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2025 | Odds

Pressure? What pressure? Not for this machine. Chloe Kelly has become a national hero for her valiant winning penalty in the Euro 2025 final, four years on from scoring the winner in the 2021 final against Germany. 

With this moment aside, she put in some mighty shifts in the lead-up to the final, including popping up with a crucial extra-time goal in the semi-final victory over Italy. This is the high drama moment the public loves, so it’s no surprise to see her so high up this list.

In a year where there’s no major men’s international football competition or Olympic games, women’s football has enjoyed the limelight. However, with two of the last three SPOTY winners being female footballers (Beth Mead in 2022 and Mary Earps in 2023), it could be that the public chooses to overlook her. 

Kelly is the current 11/10 favourite with BoyleSports for the prize at the time of writing and it will be interesting to see how the market reacts in the run-up to the awards night.

Rory McIlroy has been a national treasure for as long as I can remember, and his story plots a narrative arc steeped in legacy. By winning the 2025 Masters and becoming just the sixth player ever to seal a historic career Grand Slam, McIlroy has solidified his name in history. 

McIlroy is hugely popular on both sides of the Irish Sea and it’s no surprise to see him trading as the 7/4 second favourite with Betfred at the time of writing. The fear for McIlroy is that golf has historically struggled in this, with just two winners since the award’s conception and no winner since Nick Faldo all the way back in 1989. 

Three golfers have finished as runners-up since then, most recently McIlroy himself back in 2014, so a sustained campaign from the golfing community could be enough to kickstart the bid here - particularly as he’s one of the most famous sports stars on the planet. 

The ever-charismatic Lando Norris has seen himself surge into first place in the F1 after a comfortable victory in the Mexico City Grand Prix. After making his professional debut in the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, the British star has generated his strongest season to date.

Norris has fast become one of the most popular drivers in the sport, which should help his cause here. He’s already played a key part in McLaren’s first Constructors’ Championship win since 1998, but would almost certainly need to win the World Championship to be in the running for this. He leads his team-mate Oscar Piastri by just one point at the time of writing, but it’s worth noting that he’s now into odds-on favouritism to win a maiden title. 

Formula One is the second most successful sport in history when it comes to previous winners of SPOTY behind athletics, with F1 drivers winning the award on eight previous occasions and finishing as runner-up a further nine times. Bearing in mind both the sport’s strong record of success in this and the fact that each of the last four winners of this award have been female, Norris could prove a nice alternative at around 5/1 with William Hill should he deliver the world title. 

The remaining contenders are a little bit higher in the betting after the big three, but it might be worth taking a look at Ellie Kildunne at a bigger price. The England full-back and Harlequins star was the heartbeat of the Red Roses’ historic victory in the Women’s Rugby World Cup earlier this year, with a string of electric performances that spearheaded her side to their third world title. 

Expectations were high for England as hosts, but Kildunne’s five tournament tries played a key part in their success, including two tries and a Player of the Match performance in the semi-finals against France, before scoring a crucial try against Canada in the final, in front of a record-breaking 81,885 Twickenham crowd.

Charismatic and fierce, Kildunne has become one of the most relatable faces in British sport. At 33/1 with Betfred, her price reflects the fact that no individual women’s rugby player has ever claimed the SPOTY crown, though a sustained campaign from her fast-growing sport could mean that she could be over-priced - particularly as each of the last four winners of this have been female.