Simone Biles took home two ESPY Awards, including her second Best Female Athlete honor, on Wednesday night at ESPN’s annual awards show surveying the world of sports.
Biles also received the award for Best Championship Performance for her gold medal-winning showing in the Olympic gymnastics all-around event.
NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander beat out Shohei Ohtani, Josh Allen and Saquon Barkley for Best Male Athlete. But Barkley ended the night with three trophies, including the one for Best NFL Player.
His Philadelphia Eagles were honored with the Best Team award, and the running back also won Best Play for his backwards hurdle of a Jacksonville Jaguars defender last fall.
Comedian Shane Gillis hosted the program and delivered an uneven monologue that left him wishing he could take back certain jokes. Cracks at President Donald Trump, Aaron Rodgers and Bill Belichick’s girlfriend got laughs, but he was caught mispronouncing Diana Taurasi’s name and got an uncomfortable reaction for a line about Caitlin Clark’s treatment in the WNBA.
“When Caitlin Clark retires from the WNBA, she’s going to work at a Waffle House so she can continue doing what she loves most: fist-fighting Black women,” Gillis joked.
At the end of his monologue, Gillis said, “Well, I see a lot of you don’t like me and that’s OK. That’s it for me. That went about as well as we all thought it was going to go.”
Clark later received the Best WNBA Player award following her Rookie of the Year campaign in 2024. It was Clark’s third straight year with at least one ESPY, following back-to-back years winning in the Best College Athlete, Women’s Sports category.
Biles was named Best Female Athlete in 2017 following her dominant Olympic performance in Rio de Janeiro the year before. She received the honor once again after collecting gold medals at the 2024 Paris Games in the all-around, vault and team competitions.
The Olympics had a wide impact on the list of ESPY winners. Team USA rugby star Ilona Maher won Best Breakthrough Athlete, a bit of an upset in a category that included No. 1 NBA draft pick Cooper Flagg and Pittsburgh Pirates phenom Paul Skenes.
Maher helped the U.S. take home bronze in rugby sevens at the Paris Games. Her personality and messages about body positivity helped vault her into the national consciousness, and she appeared on “Dancing with the Stars,” finishing runner-up. She became the first rugby player to win an ESPY.
And Biles’ teammate, Suni Lee, won Best Comeback Athlete for overcoming two rare kidney diseases and winning three medals in Paris.
NBA legend Oscar Robertson was recognized with the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage for his work as the NBA Players Association president to establish free agency in the 1970s.
Penn State volleyball coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley, a cancer survivor, received the Jimmy V Award in memory of the late basketball coach Jim Valvano.
Other winners Wednesday included:
Best College Athlete, Men’s Sports: Cooper Flagg, Duke basketball
Best College Athlete, Women’s Sports: JuJu Watkins, Southern California basketball
Best Athlete With a Disability: Noah Elliott, snowboarding
Best Record-Breaking Performance: Alex Ovechkin breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record
Best NFL Player: Saquon Barkley, Philadelphia Eagles
Best MLB Player: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers
Best NHL Player: Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton Oilers
Best NBA Player: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
Best WNBA Player: Caitlin Clark, Indiana Fever
Best Soccer Player: Christian Pulisic, AC Milan, U.S. men’s national team
Best Driver: Max Verstappen, F1
Best Golfer: Scottie Scheffler
Best Boxer: Katie Taylor
Best UFC Fighter: Merab Dvalishvili
Best Tennis Player: Coco Gauff
Muhammad Ali Sports Humanitarian Award: Sloane Stephens
–Field Level Media
