Capital Gazette Player of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Capital Gazette Player of the Week?

The Capital Gazette Player of the Week is a weekly public poll run by the Capital Gazette, a Maryland publication, and hosted on Crowdsignal, which most people know as poll.fm. Each week the newspaper asks readers who should be its Player of the Week, and the answers list players across several sports.

The poll runs weekly rather than as a single season-long award. Its season runs from September through May, so the ballots fall within that window each year. This page describes the program by its publisher, sport mix and season, and it names no individual on any ballot.

Which Player of the Week seasons are confirmed?

The confirmed seasons are 2025 and 2026, and the poll runs weekly within each season. The season pattern is the most solid dated fact here: a September start and a May finish, repeated across both years.

The linked poll is marked Poll Closed, and the sources for this page do not print the open or close day for any weekly ballot. Each week's voting window is therefore a gap, so the live poll is the only place to confirm a given week's dates.

The next ballot's date is not printed in the material behind this page; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. No date for the season after 2026 has been set there. Readers should follow the newspaper's own announcements for the season that comes after 2026.

How does a reader vote in the weekly poll today?

A reader opens the current weekly poll on Crowdsignal, reads the ballot answers, and submits a vote for the player they like best. The sources for this page describe the mechanic as a public online vote, with no panel review or paid step in the count.

Reading the weekly answers

Each answer on the ballot gives a player's name, sport and team, which is how a reader tells the choices apart. None of those names are repeated here, and only the sports the sources mention are listed.

Weekly voting steps

How does this poll sit beside other Maryland player polls?

The Capital Gazette poll shares Maryland with several player-of-the-week ballots. The nearest siblings are the Maryland High School Baseball Player of the Week, the Maryland High School Boys Basketball Player of the Week and the Maryland High School Boys Lacrosse Player of the Week, each of which is organized around a single sport.

The Capital Gazette poll covers several sports in one weekly ballot, which sets it apart from those sport-specific polls. Other Maryland ballots, such as the Delmarva Now Fan's Choice Athlete of the Season and the Herald-Mail Athlete of the Week, are run by other publishers in other parts of the state.

How can a reader help a weekly nominee get more votes?

The most useful step is to tell readers that the weekly ballot is open and where to find it. The sources for this page describe a public online vote, so a supporter's job is to point people to the poll and let them choose.

For a general guide to building support online, read our page on getting more votes online. Anyone considering purchased votes should first read whether buying votes is legal and the poll rules the Capital Gazette publishes, since those rules decide whether bought votes count.

Paid options for public polls are covered on the buy votes online page, but nobody selling them can promise a result on a weekly ballot whose counting rules belong to the organizer.