The Heisman Trophy will add fan voting in 2026 according to Sports Business Journal. Fan voting will begin on September 9th and go all season with all the fan voting being combined and submitted as a single vote to go along with the more than 1,000 current individual voters.
There is a countdown clock on the Heisman Hopefuls website where fans will be able to vote. Statistics, including “EA Sports College Football ’27” ratings are prominently featured. Via SBJ:
The initiative is being supported by EA Sports, Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center, Next League — the Heisman’s AI and technology service provider — and Yangaroo, which hosts the fan vote ballot. CLC will also be involved to enable the purchase of approved merchandise featuring eligible athletes.
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So fans can vote for the Heisman in September using video game ratings. It’s the kind of thing that makes you wonder how a trophy was able to survive nearly a century without an official AI service provider.
In the SBJ article Heisman CEO Jeff Price said that they wanted to make the Heisman a “year-round platform.” It seems that nothing can just be one thing anymore. The Heisman is the trophy given to the best player in college football each year.
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Heisman is more than a trophy
Why must everything be everything all at once now?
Why does the Heisman need a platform in March? To promote the year-round Heisman podcast? Maybe to make sure that Heisman winners like Jayden Daniels are properly respected by the schools they played for?
I realize it’s harmless. Giving every fan in American the chance to affect less than one-thousandth of a percent of the Heisman vote will probably have less of an impact than Akron letting a fan put together a gameplan against Robert Morris.
That doesn’t make it less weird when you hear someone say the most prestigious award in college sports has fan voting as if it’s the “People’s Choice Awards” or “Dancing with the Stars.”
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