MANHATTAN — Folks, it really was a great year in sports, even for those of us who aren’t regularly paying attention: The underdog New York Knicks won the NBA Finals, Shohei Ohtani defied baseball physics, and the Olympics introduced the masses to our new national treasure, Alysa Liu.
I spent a soggy, smoky night celebrating it all with some of the tallest and most talented people in the country at the 2026 ESPY Awards, hosted by comedian Marcello Hernández at Lincoln Center.
As someone who observes sports more from a cultural angle than a technical one, I admit I find most of the fun of televised competition to be the emotion and drama of it all (besides the whole “who’s going to win” element). I also only learned that “ESPY” stands for “Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly” last night. I still had an amazing time.
Here’s what I observed as an in-person attendee at the ESPYs that you might not have picked up during the televised broadcast on ESPN.
The red carpet was wet, delayed and hectic
When I arrived at the theater for the red carpet, the air was heavy with wildfire smoke and the humidity of an impending deluge. Sure enough, it poured. The nasty summer storm cost everyone about an hour of interview time, but fortunately, I got to spend that time indoors chatting with Yahoo’s correspondent for the night: Jazzy, a delightfully brilliant 16-year-old journalist. We spent a while fantasizing about the snacks we wished we had brought, and she recommended I try putting Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in the freezer for 15 minutes, which I will be doing next time I anticipate being grumpy and impatient.
The rain left the carpet drenched, sloshing water up at my shoes with every step I took. But athletes, even in formalwear, are famously resilient, and we got some great interviews. That helped me push through mild discomfort all night.
The Knicks and Alysa Liu soaked up the limelight
Blame it on recency bias or the fact that this whole thing took place in New York City, but the Knicks were the undisputed darlings of the evening. They dominated the actual awards portion, winning the top honor of the night (Best Team) while Jalen Brunson nabbed three trophies (including Best Athlete – Men’s Sports) and OG Anunoby won Best Play.
Brunson was like Princess Diana in that theater. He was one of the few people who got to keep his front-and-center seat all evening, and during nearly every commercial break, I watched guests walk up and shake his hand. Anunoby was the only winner to inspire chanting from the audience — and hysterical laughter when he, for some reason, spread his legs to lower himself to the microphone for his speech instead of bending over.
Alysa Liu, whom I watched animatedly hug and greet dozens of people on the red carpet, got everyone on their feet when she won Best Breakthrough Athlete. My personal breakthrough athlete of the night was basketball player Lauren Betts, whose moving Best College Athlete acceptance speech about protecting her mental health instantly made me a fan. Worth noting: I saw her on my way back from the bathroom, and in heels, she’s taller than NBA player Bam Adebayo. I didn’t know that was possible.
I have to admit, I had an eye out for Jake Paul the whole night, because pivoting from YouTube to boxing is kind of the most fascinating thing a person can do in my eyes (and I’ve written about him roughly four times). When Hernández joked about his propensity for fighting older men, and he jokingly mouthed “I’m gonna come up there” in response, the crowd laughed with an earnestness they probably would not reserve for someone they hate. It probably helped that Mike Tyson, his onetime opponent, was in a ton of sketches and bits throughout the night, and people lost their minds cheering for him. Has everyone forgotten that that fight was actually really depressing?
The power couples were everywhere
Also worth noting: There were a ton of sporty power couples there, and the crowd loved them. Paul stayed close to his fiancée, Olympic speed skater Jutta Leerdam. Gymnastics GOAT Simone Biles was there with her husband, Colts safety Jonathan Owens (yes, their height difference is even more charming in person). NFL player Myles Garrett and Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim shared multiple sweet moments and Knicks player Karl-Anthony Towns and influencer-slash-good-luck-charm Jordyn Woods were adorable as always.
Not every joke landed for Marcello, but he had the energy necessary to keep it pushing
Hosting an awards show is a tough gig, even if you’re used to the rigor of Saturday Night Live. Not every joke landed for Hernández, but he always sprang quickly to the next bit with the speed and stamina of an athlete.
The audience was tickled by a joke about Tiger Woods and Grand Theft Auto, but didn’t respond to one about the age difference between Bill Belichick and his girlfriend. None of his jokes inspired groans, though a comment from comedian Jeff Ross about Conor McGregor in a pre-recorded bit did.
To be honest, I’m not sure the audience even perceived that some of Hernández’s jokes were jokes at all, like when he told football player Fernando Mendoza it was a “pleasure to meet … your mom” and was met with crickets. High school stereotypes still hold, apparently: you’re either a jock or a class clown.
One of the award presentations needed a redo
While presenting honors to high school athletes alongside track-and-field Olympian Alyson Felix, Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum sneezed. At least I think it was a sneeze — could have been a cough. It was definitely an unexpected sinus noise. I imagine this is the struggle reporters who witnessed Will Smith’s Oscars altercation with Chris Rock faced in deciding whether to call it a “slap” or a “hit.”
They got through the reading of the names of all 10 teenage nominees, who were on the stage behind them, before the music cut off and a disembodied voice announced they were briefly going to a commercial break before they could announce a winner. When the show started again, Tatum and Felix delivered their lines and named the two winners, this time without reading all their names off. I confirmed with my husband, who was watching at home, that the sneeze never aired.
I feel bad singling Tatum out like this, because I haven’t even seen any other reporters’ posts about it, but I know what I saw. It might also be my destiny as a UNC alum to mildly embarrass a former Duke basketball player. Now we’re even.
There’s a ton of low-stakes gossip you’d only know if you were there
People always ask me what happens in the theater while the network is airing commercials. I’ll tell you: A DJ plays music very loudly, and a giant onscreen countdown reveals how much time remains in your bathroom break, before an announcer (who never appears in the broadcast) materializes to command you to be more energetic. At the ESPYs, there was constant movement on the celebrity floor, where people were mingling and hugging. I saw Eileen Gu in particular doing a lot of that. Sometimes, photographers randomly waltz up to them and take a photo.
One of my favorite audience perks is that nothing said in the theater gets bleeped out, so you can hear what stars really think when handed a mic. Mendoza exclaimed, “Holy shit!” when stumped by mentalist Oz Pearlman. Garrett declared, “Well shit!” when his partner Kim announced he’d won an award, as if he didn’t have it on lock the whole time.
The ESPYs were surprisingly emotional
I know ESPN doesn’t play about a moving sports documentary, but I wasn’t expecting to tear up so many times throughout the ceremony. Peppered throughout the show were awards honoring inspirational figures and heroes, like Jim Abbott, a one-handed baseball player who pitched a no-hitter for the Yankees in 1993, and former college athlete and Coast Guard rescue swimmer Scott Ruskan, who saved 165 lives in the Camp Mystic floods. Both honorees had the crowd sniffling.
By the end of the night, I really couldn’t hold it together. Jason Collins, an NBA player who was the first-ever openly gay athlete on a major sports team, posthumously won the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. “Courage has a way of outliving the courageous,” narrator Colman Domingo said in a video honoring Collins’s work in his community before dying of cancer this year. Watching Collins’s brother accept the award on his behalf — oh man, they got me.
I really didn’t expect a sports awards show to tug so brutally at my heartstrings, but looking back, it makes sense. Greatness demands so much sacrifice, even if it’s just surrendering your time in the pursuit of something bigger than yourself. Athletes are generally expected to be stoic, so it was nice to see them be emotional while celebrating all of the victories of the past year.
I then got the biggest case of emotional whiplash of my life when the announcer asked us to stand for De La Soul. I couldn’t do it. But something happened in the final moments of the show. A hero appeared, just when we needed them most, for the second time this year, to elevate our collective spirits: the Knicks. They won Best Team, and the whole squad, save Josh Hart, who they joked had been uninvited, took the stage in jubilation.
When Fat Joe abruptly appeared behind them to sing his 2017 hit “All The Way Up” at a volume higher than anything I’d heard all night, the audience, including me, started to trickle out. As I got reacquainted with the streets of Manhattan, still both smoky and soggy, I saw Knicks fans leaning against a metal barricade, straining for a glimpse at any of the players. We’ve been basking in the glow of their victory for a month at this point, yet it still feels so fresh and uplifting. I love sports.