Best Male Athlete ESPY Award


The Best Male Athlete ESPY Award, known alternatively as the Outstanding Male Athlete ESPY Award, has been presented annually at the ESPY Awards since 1993 to the male voted irrespective of nationality or sport contested, adjudged to be the best athlete in a given calendar year. Between 1993 and 2004, the award voting panel comprised variously fans; sportswriters and broadcasters, sports executives, and retired sportspersons, termed collectively experts; and ESPN personalities, but balloting thereafter has been exclusively by fans over the Internet from amongst choices selected by the ESPN Select Nominating Committee. Through the 2001 iteration of the ESPY Awards, ceremonies were conducted in February of each year to honor achievements over the previous calendar year; awards presented thereafter are conferred in June or July and reflect performance from the June previous.
Three American athletes, golfer Tiger Woods, road cyclist Lance Armstrong, and basketball player LeBron James, have won the award multiple times. Woods was honored five times: in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2008. Armstrong was honored four times from 2003 to 2006 inclusive while James received the trophy in 2012, 2013 and 2016. Basketball is the most successful sport, its players having received a total of nine awards since its inception. The award has been won by a non-American three times - in 2011 by German basketball player Dirk Nowitzki, in 2018 by Russian hockey player Alexander Ovechkin and in 2019 by Greek basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo. The 2017 winner of the Best Male Athlete ESPY Award was basketball player Russell Westbrook who received his trophy at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The award wasn't awarded in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

List of winners

Statistics

- includes award shared by Woods and Griffey Jr. in 1998
Nation representedNumber of awardsIndividual winners
2215
11
11
11

- includes award shared by Woods and Griffey Jr. in 1998