Vote: Who should be The Sporting News California Team of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who votes and what the California Team of the Week ballot is

The community behind this ballot is the statewide crowd of California high school football followers: parents, students, alumni and local fans who want their school's Friday performance recognized. The Sporting News California runs Vote: Who should be The Sporting News California Team of the Week as a fan-vote series for exactly that audience, covering the whole state rather than a single league or section.

The format is a weekly honor, in the same best-of spirit as the reader's-choice contests that run across California markets. Each ballot asks a single question and lists the week's nominated schools as the options. Crowdsignal (poll.fm) hosts the poll, the same polling platform behind many publisher fan votes, and the live ballot sits at poll.fm/16208722.

Program facts

Because the program covers California as a whole, no single city anchors it. A Week 9 slate, for example, stretched from Orange Lutheran-area private schools to public programs in the Central Valley and the coastal south, which is typical of how wide the nominee pool runs.

Dated editions and the weekly voting window

Confirmed seasons for the series include 2023 and 2025, so the Team of the Week vote has run across more than a single fall, and a 2026 edition is expected alongside the next high school football season. Within a season, the series is a string of weekly polls rather than one long ballot: a Week 9 poll had already closed by the time it was archived, and an earlier week's nominees carried the dates September 18-20.

The weekly rhythm is the durable fact. Polls go live during September and October, each one tied to a specific week of the football schedule, and each one shuts at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday. The Sporting News states that results are revealed in the days that follow the close, so a school's supporters typically learn the outcome late in the same week they voted.

What the publisher has not printed is just as relevant to a supporter planning a push. The ballot text carries no category roster, no stated ceiling on repeat participation by any individual and no eligibility terms; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The exact hour each fresh weekly poll opens is likewise not announced in advance, since it follows the publisher's editorial schedule for that week's coverage.

How a supporter votes in the weekly poll today

The mechanic is deliberately simple. A supporter opens the current poll.fm ballot, sees the week's nominated California high schools listed as radio options, selects one and submits. Under each school the running tally is visible, so the state of the race is public while voting is live. On the Week 9 ballot, for instance, Crean Lutheran stood at 27% on 3 votes at the point the closed poll displayed, with Laguna Beach, Los Altos of Hacienda Heights, Merced, Monte Vista of Danville, Palisades, Palm Desert, San Clemente, Templeton and Torrance also on the slate.

Repeat participation is explicitly permitted. The Sporting News tells readers they can cast votes multiple times until 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, which is unusual among fan ballots and makes an organized fan base unusually powerful here. A school community that reminds its members daily, before the Wednesday night close, can multiply its total without any tool beyond a phone.

Nothing on the ballot asks for an account, a payment or a login, and the publisher prints no restriction on device or network. Since the nominee slate changes every week, a supporter should always start from the live ballot rather than an old link to a closed poll, because last week's form no longer accepts votes.

How this ballot sits beside California's other fan votes

California readers who enjoy this poll have a wider set of public votes to follow, and the comparison clarifies what makes the Team of the Week format different. The state's best-of programs, such as Best of Orange County, Best of San Diego & Best Restaurants and Best of Silicon Valley, are regional business and community awards with many categories and a long seasonal window.

The Team of the Week vote inverts that shape. It is statewide rather than county-based, it honors schools instead of businesses, and it resets weekly, so momentum matters far more than a months-long campaign. Programs such as Best of Marin, Best of Central Valley Business and the Best of North State Community's Choice Awards reward sustained local loyalty; the Sporting News ballot rewards a strong single Friday night backed by a fast-moving fan base.

For a supporter, the practical difference is pacing. A business award campaign can be planned over weeks, while a Team of the Week push lives and dies inside a single September or October cycle ending Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. Fans who want the broader contests will find each of the six programs above on its own page, with its own ballot, publisher and rules.