BBC Sports Personality Of The Year / Dave Farrar / 29 April 2009 / Leave a comment

As the sporting year gets into swing, Dave Farrar finds few reasons to get excited by the favourites in the early SPOTY odds.

After the downright odd decision of the PFA to give their blue riband award to a man who has only started 12 Premier League games this season, the mind can't help but turn towards another overhyped prize which won't be decided until December, and which will be voted for by you, you lucky people.

On Saturday night Carl Froch laid down his marker for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award and yet, despite producing one of the most astonishing performances by a British sportsman in recent years, the shameful fact that his fight against Jermaine Taylor wasn't shown live on television in this country means that he has next to no chance of winning, even though he is trading at [36.0] and, to my mind, has now produced the benchmark that the others all have to beat.

In what could be a stellar year for British boxing, Ricky Hatton and David Haye are available at [22.0] and [24.0], and with both certain to gather more publicity than Froch, and both having very good chances of winning major fights, they look value at those prices.

Andy Murray is the favourite at [3.45], but that centres on him winning Wimbledon or, more realistically, the US Open, and, for all the work which has been done on his image, the feeling persists amongst fans that he is a fairly unpleasant character: he's definitely too short to win what is effectively a popularity contest, and Jenson Button, while scoring high positive image points, may not win the Drivers' Championship, and even if he does, may fall victim to the reluctance to vote for someone with a rich playboy image in these trying financial times.

With the top two in the market looking opposable, the next obvious source from which to find a winner is the major sporting event of the summer, The Ashes. But England are now [3.45] and drifting, and justifiably so. Andrew Strauss is [46.0], but dull as ditchwater, Andrew Flintoff is [36.0] but unlikely to play the whole series and Kevin Pietersen is, not to put too fine a point on it, a prat. He will never win one of these awards, and is one to miss at [32.0].

The only England cricketer who could have a chance of winning in December, given the way that the Ashes story might develop, is Michael Vaughan. Returning hero finds form, etc etc: it still, though, takes a considerable leap of faith to back him at [100.0].

A British golfer might win the The Open, and if his name was Rory McIlroy, then that would probably be enough to take the award at [26.0], and Tony McCoy is rightly up there in the top six in the betting at [19.5], but not enough of the general public understand just how good he is for him to ever win.

So a field which seems massive gets smaller and smaller with the application of a bit of logic. Mark Cavendish falls down because he is unloveable and his sport is unfashionable, and, even with an English team likely to win the Champions League, it's hard to see a footballer triumphing in this award in a non-World Cup or European Championship year.

Frank Lampard's emotion endears him to people, and with Chelsea having a decent chance of a Champions League and FA Cup double, the [140.0] about him may not be the worst bet of all time, and with England possessing the best Women's player in Europe and having a reasonable chance of winning the Euro, the name of Kelly Smith should also come into your calculations.

But any calculations bring me back to where I started - boxing. As detailed in this column last week, Hatton has a big chance against Manny Pacquiao this weekend of becoming acknowledged as the best pound for pound fighter in the world, and you're probably better to back him at [22.0] to win the BBC Sports Personality award than simply to win the fight at [3.15].

The manner of the way in which Haye is likely to try and dismantle Wladimir Klitschko in June, and the huge chance that he undoubtedly has, makes him the standout bet at [24.0].

Spare a thought for Froch, who produced a career defining performance with few people in this country really knowing about it, and spare a thought too for Ryan Giggs, who has achieved wonderful things in a stellar career, but will always be partly remembered for winning an award that he shouldn't have. He is [65.0] to win the Sports Personality of the Year by the way, and he would need to score three goals and save a penalty in the Champions League final for that to represent any kind of value.