Vote for Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week ballot is

The Bay Area News Group, the publisher behind the Mercury News and East Bay Times, puts up a weekly boys athlete of the week ballot for high school sport in the Bay Area, California. Each week the group posts a fresh public poll listing that week's nominees, and readers pick the performer they want to see take the title. The ballot sits on Crowdsignal under the poll.fm address, and the page for the current vote is https://poll.fm/15566005.

The programme covers boys high school sport broadly rather than a single discipline. The publisher serves the Bay Area market through its Mercury News and East Bay Times mastheads, and the weekly ballot draws from the athletes those papers' writers cover during the school year. Nominations arrive by email to the publisher's high school desk, and a fresh set of nominees goes up for each week of the season.

Key facts at a glance

The season record and what the ballot does not publish

Confirmed seasons of this ballot run 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Each season stretches from September to May, with a fresh poll posted weekly within that window. The weekly rhythm is driven by the Monday nomination cutoff: the publisher collects names by email, assembles the nominee list, and opens the new ballot for readers to pick from. This cycle has repeated across every confirmed season.

The ballot itself does not print when the current week's vote opens or closes; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The organizer has also not published a per-supporter vote limit, an eligibility rule for who may cast a pick, or any dates beyond the weekly nomination cutoff. No prize value and no tiebreak procedure have been stated either. The ballot lists its nominees directly and readers cast their pick on the spot without a separate entry round.

What the confirmed years show is a recurring seasonal programme with a weekly pulse. The ballot is not a one-off award or an annual gala. A new set of nominees goes up, supporters pick, and the result settles before the next one opens. Whether a 2026 season has been scheduled has not been announced by the publisher, and the organizer has not stated how far ahead it plans each season's calendar.

How a supporter votes on the boys athlete of the week ballot

Voting takes a visit to the live ballot at https://poll.fm/15566005. The supporter reads the nominee list for the current week, selects the name to back, and submits. The poll is a public vote sitting on Crowdsignal, and the pick registers on the spot.

The organizer draws a clear line on what counts. Only votes submitted through the online poll on the Mercury News and East Bay Times websites register toward the result. Votes sent by email do not count, no matter how many arrive. This is the publisher's own stated rule, and it means that forwarding a link by email is not the same as casting a vote.

For readers who want to see a particular athlete on a future ballot, the nomination route is email. The publisher accepts nominations at [email protected] with a Monday at 11 a.m. cutoff before the next week's ballot opens. The group assembles the nominee list from those submissions and posts the new poll for readers to pick from. Once the nominee appears on the ballot, the supporter returns during the week the poll is live and casts the pick.

Each week's poll stands on its own. There is no qualifying round and no regional heat to advance from: a fresh set of nominees goes up, supporters pick, and the result settles before the next ballot opens.

Where this ballot sits among California's weekly sports polls

California carries several weekly high school sport ballots on this site alongside the Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week. The state-level programmes each track a single discipline: the California High School Baseball Player of the Week covers the diamond sport, the California High School Boys Basketball Player of the Week follows the court game, and the California High School Football Player of the Week tracks the fall favourite. Each runs under its own programme name, answers to its own publisher, and keeps its own ballot.

The California High School Girls Basketball Athlete of the Week splits from the boys programme by gender within basketball, while the California High School Softball Player of the Week covers another diamond discipline from the girls side. The Fresno Bee Athlete of the Week is the closest structural match to the Bay Area ballot: it is also a newspaper-run programme naming a single athlete of the week, but it anchors to a different California city and a different publisher.

What separates the Bay Area ballot from the sport-specific state programmes is its breadth. Rather than tracking a single sport across the entire state, it tracks boys high school competition of any discipline within the publisher's coverage area. A nominee might come from any sport the Mercury News and East Bay Times writers are covering that week, which means each ballot reflects the range of competition the paper's writers are following at that point in the season.

Strengthening support for a nominee in this weekly format

The weekly reset shapes what works in this ballot. Because a fresh poll opens each week during the active season, support has to be gathered inside a tight window rather than spread across months. The organizer's rule that email votes do not count means outreach has to point people to the live ballot itself, not to a reply address. The Monday nomination deadline gives supporters a fixed point on the calendar to rally around for the following week.

The most practical step is to share the direct ballot link while the current poll is open, since only clicks on the online poll register. A nominee whose supporters spread the link early in the week has more time to accumulate clicks than a nominee whose circle waits until the final hours. Supporters who want a broader view can read the guide on how to get more votes online.