Prime Highlights
- Simone Biles takes home Best Female Athlete and Best Championship Performance for her gold medal at the Paris Olympics.
- Saquon Barkley takes home three of the most coveted ESPY awards, including Best NFL Player and Best Play.
Key Facts
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is awarded Best Male Athlete for his MVP-level NBA campaign.
- Ilona Maher becomes the first rugby athlete in ESPY history to be awarded, winning Best Breakthrough Athlete.
Key Background
The 2025 ESPY Awards recognized the best in the world of sports’ in an A-list night of soaking in excellence on the Los Angeles Dolby Theatre. Comedian Shane Gillis hosted the event, which celebrated athletes who represented excellence, toughness, and inspiration in the previous year.
Comeback queen Simone Biles dominated Olympic glory a second time in Paris claimed Best Female Athlete and Best Championship Performance, which summed up her genius comeback and determination perfectly. Winning all-around was proof of her determination genius and tenacity.
Saquon Barkley won three ESPYs—Best NFL Player, Best Play for his now legendary reverse hurdle backward, and for the Philadelphia Eagles, Best Team winners. The first year Barkley was on the roster for the NFL, he showed that he is a ball player to be reckoned with on the field, but also media darling and fans’ sweetheart too.
One-year NBA wunderkind wunderkind-to-the-front Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was Best Male Athlete. In his first year in the league as a franchise pillar, he was a one and a sportsmanship, consistency, and athleticism award winner.
Evening also celebrated return and breakthrough sports champions. Suni Lee, who battled life-threatening kidney disease, won Best Comeback Athlete for battling for a medal in Paris. Ilona Maher, US women’s rugby sevens phenomenon, took home Best Breakthrough Athlete, the first rugby sportsman or woman to win ESPY gold.
Icon Award was bestowed on icons Diana Taurasi and Alex Morgan, who blazed a trail to be remembered by women in sport. Social influence award winners were legendary firefighters David Walters and Erin Regan, and Oscar Robertson and Katie Schumacher-Cawley, who were recognized for service and humanitarian work.
2025 ESPYs were full of moments of triumph, tears, and history as they saw the power of sport to unite and inspire us.
Read more : OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Agent with Operator and Deep Research Integration
