LINK nky Team of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the LINK nky Team of the Year and who runs it?

The LINK nky Team of the Year asks the publisher's Kentucky high school sports readership a single question, which school program deserves the year's top honor, and settles it entirely by reader clicks. It is run by LINK nky, a Kentucky publisher whose sports coverage lives at linknky.com. The honor crowns a season-long ladder. Through the year the publisher runs a Team of the Week ballot, nomination calls go out through its online and printed editions and its social media accounts, and each poll follows at the end of its article.

Starting with the 2024-25 sports seasons, the partners expanded the format so that three Team of the Season winners are named alongside one overall Team of the Year. Backing comes from OrthoCincy Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine, which joins LINK nky on the program; together they describe it as a way to celebrate the "remarkable achievements of our local high school athletes and teams."

Voting is hosted on Crowdsignal, the service behind poll.fm, and the Team of the Year ballot sits at https://poll.fm/17155163 under the title Who should be the LINK nky Team of the Year? Because the options are school teams rather than restaurants or retailers, the audience is a school community: families, students, alumni and athletic staff, coordinated largely through the publisher's own coverage.

Quick facts

The sections below take the details one at a time, from the edition history through the voting mechanic and the neighboring Kentucky ballots.

Which editions have run, and what did the closed ballot show?

Two editions of the Team of the Year vote are confirmed, in 2025 and 2026. Both were anchored to June: the poll.fm ballots carrying the program fall between June of one sports year and June of the next, and the publisher's most recent coverage of the Year honor ran in June 2026. The ballot reachable at the voting address today is the 2026 edition, and it displays a Poll Closed notice over the final standings.

The closing tally

Highlands Swim and Dive and St. Henry Boys Cross Country landed on the same rounded share, with Highlands ahead on the raw count, while Campbell County Softball trailed a long way back. Outcomes shaped like that are settled by accumulated participation rather than by any single late surge.

What the ballot does not print is a method. LINK nky lays out no published path for how teams reach the Year ballot, no list of surrounding categories and no calendar dates for when the poll opened or shut; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How does a supporter cast a vote in the LINK nky Team of the Year ballot?

The act itself is short. Loading https://poll.fm/17155163 brings up the Team of the Year question with its three nominated programs listed; pick one, submit the choice, and the running tally beside each option moves as clicks land. On the closed edition the options are the teams shown in the table above.

LINK nky's published guidance for its Team of the Week polls sets the rhythm supporters can expect: "The voting process is open to the public through Friday at noon each week," and "Participants can vote multiple times a day and can vote every day leading up to the close of voting." The publisher prints that guidance on its weekly ballots; whether those limits carry over to the June Year round is something LINK nky leaves unstated on the poll page.

Nominations and the weekly engine

Each week, "a call for Team of the Week nominations will be announced via LINK nky's online and printed editions with links shared on all of LINK nky social media platforms," and "the poll where you can vote follows at the end of the article." The weekly winners feed the seasonal rounds named earlier, and the Year ballot closes the ladder with a single question.

Practically, that structure rewards consistency. A base that treats the Friday-noon deadline as a weekly appointment, and uses the repeat-vote allowance the organizer describes, arrives at the closing day with far more weight than a group that votes once and moves on.

How does this school-team ballot differ from other Kentucky public votes?

Kentucky's public-vote calendar holds several neighboring programs: Best of Bowling Green, Best in Kentucky, Best of Lexington KY, Best Places to Work in Kentucky, the BroadwayWorld Louisville Awards and Chevy Chaser Best of Lex.

Most of those ballots ask readers to choose among businesses, workplaces, venues or stage productions. The LINK nky Team of the Year asks something narrower and more personal: which school team deserves the year. Its option list is drawn from school programs, its voter base is a school community of families, students and alumni, and its calendar hangs off the high school sports year rather than a consumer season.

The publishing setup differs too. Consumer best-of contests tend to stand alone as annual events, while this honor grows out of a weekly rhythm the publisher maintains all year: a Team of the Week question, a Friday-noon close, then seasonal and yearly rounds stacked on top. Momentum accrues across months, and the June finale collects whatever energy the weekly rounds built.

Audience shape separates it as well. The closing tally on the recent ballot makes the Year vote unusually heavy for a program whose natural constituency is a handful of school communities, which is why coordinated backing matters more here than casual passing traffic ever could.

How can a team's backers make their support count in this poll?

Support that moves the tally starts with the ballot's own design. Because repeat visits are allowed under the organizer's guidance, coordination beats bursts: agree on a daily reminder inside the team's parent and alumni groups, and place the link where those groups already look each morning.

The publisher's share prompt says it plainly: "Give others the chance to vote. Share this poll, because the more votes the better." Passing the ballot through team group chats, booster pages and family threads is the organic route the organizer itself endorses.

For backers weighing paid support, LINK nky prints no policy on purchased votes for this ballot, so anyone spending money should study the organizer's terms and the legal position on paid poll votes first. Broader tactics for widening reach sit in the votes guide.