Best Athletes of 2026: Staff Ballot

How to voteDrag, type a rank or hit + Ballot; everything saves as you go.

Rank: move onto Your Ballot with + Ballot, by dragging a card, or by typing a number in the # box next to any card, including cards in Cut (a number past the end of your ballot puts it at the bottom). Then drag, type in the rank box or use the arrows to order them 1 to . On a phone or tablet, drag by the dotted handle or press and hold a card.
Cut anything you never want to rank. Undo takes back your last change. Everything saves automatically in this browser.
Submit when all are ranked. You can resubmit any time before the deadline (), and your latest ballot replaces the earlier one. Copy for Sheets and Export CSV are the backup if the submit fails.
Find: search, the filter menu and the Show chips narrow the list (more than one chip means all of them). Click anywhere on a card to open it; click a thumbnail to play the example right there. All shows ranked and unranked side by side; Your Ballot and Cut show those piles as full cards.
Write-ins: something missing? Add it under Write-ins and it lands at the bottom of your ballot to rank like anything else. Hide Panel folds the ballot column into a slim bar that still takes drops.

What we're rankingOnly what happened between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2026, counts.

The 99 best athletes of 2026. Only what happened between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2026, counts.

Weigh

What they won and did this year: titles, MVPs and major awards, records, league-leading seasons.
How far above their own sport's competition they were.
The size of the stage. Finals, playoff runs, majors and Olympic golds count more than regular-season numbers.
For seasons that straddle two years, only the 2026 part. The NFL and college football playoffs in January and February count, and so do awards handed out in 2026 for a 2025 season.

Don't weigh

Career resume or reputation from before 2026.
What they might do next year.

How to read a card

Every line is dated with the month it happened in 2026, and nothing from before 2026 is listed.
A stat that started in late 2025 (an NHL points total, an NFL team's 14-3 record) is marked in gold as a season total, with a note on which 2025 games it includes.
Odds, polls and "lock" calls are what the market says now, not an award that has been handed out.

How athletes made the pool

Each did something in 2026 that ranks among the best in their sport: a title, a major award, a record or a league-leading season.
The pool covers 12 leagues and sports, with the NFL and NBA deepest.
NFL and college football cards built on part of the 2026 season say so. Judge them on what they've done by the time you vote.
Missing someone? Add them as a write-in and they land on your ballot.

The Pool

Show:

Drag a card onto Your Ballot, or type a rank in its # box and hit Enter.

Your Ballot

No. 1 at the top

Jump

Write-ins

Something missing from The Pool? Add it here and it goes straight onto your ballot to rank like anything else. Write-ins are flagged on your ballot so the desk can review them.

Cut

Built from the B/R Subjective ballot template