BBC Sports Personality of the Century

BBC Sports Personality of the Year
2016 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award
The trophy for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award is a silver four-turret lens camera
Country	United Kingdom
Presented by	British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
First awarded	1954
Official website	www.bbc.co.uk/sportspersonality

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year is an awards ceremony that takes place annually in December. Devised by Paul Fox in 1954, it originally consisted of just one, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. Several new awards have been introduced, and currently eight awards are presented. The first awards to be added were the Team of the Year and Overseas Personality awards, which were introduced in 1960. A Lifetime Achievement Award was first given in 1995 and again in 1996, and has been presented annually since 2001. In 1999, three more awards were introduced: the Helen Rollason Award, the Coach Award, and the Newcomer Award, which was renamed to Young Sports Personality of the Year in 2001. The newest is the Unsung Hero Award, first presented in 2003. In 2003, the 50th anniversary of the show was marked by a five-part series on BBC One called Simply The Best – Sports Personality. It was presented by Gary Lineker and formed part of a public vote to determine a special Golden Sports Personality of the Year. That year Steve Rider and Martyn Smith wrote a book reflecting on the 50-year history of the award and the programme. The event was held outside London for the first time in 2006, when tickets were made available to the public.

The trophy for the main award is a silver-plated four-turret lens camera, and for the other awards smaller imitations of the main trophy are used. All of the BBC local regions hold their own independent award ceremonies, which take place before the main ceremony and are used to compile a shortlist for the BBC Sports Unsung Hero Award.