Jalen Brunson, Lionel Messi & Alysa Liu Lead the 2026 ESPYS Nominations: Everything You Need to Know

Table of Contents

• The ESPYS Are Heading Back to New York City
• Jalen Brunson’s Big Moment
• Messi: Still the GOAT, Still Getting His Flowers
• Alysa Liu and the Rise of Winter Sports Stars
• A Loaded Nominations List Across All Categories
• Why the ESPYS Still Matter in 2026

The ESPYS Are Heading Back to New York City

Every year, the world of sports and entertainment collides in a spectacular, glitzy way when ESPN’s ESPYS Awards rolls around, and the 2026 edition is shaping up to be one of the most talked-about yet. The ceremony is set to return to New York City in July, bringing with it a star-studded nominations list that spans basketball courts, football pitches, ice rinks, and everything in between. For fans who have followed the ESPYS since its debut in 1993, the move back to NYC feels like a homecoming of sorts – a signal that the show is leaning into a bigger, bolder identity as it celebrates the best and brightest in sports over the past year. This is not just a night for athletes; it is one of those rare moments where the worlds of entertainment, celebrity, and athletic achievement blend seamlessly into one very watchable evening.

The ESPYS have always occupied a unique space in the awards show landscape. Unlike the Oscars or the Grammys, where the art being celebrated can feel abstract or subjective, the ESPYS deal in undeniable achievements – championships won, records broken, comebacks staged against impossible odds. There is an emotional resonance to watching an athlete receive recognition from peers and fans alike, and ESPN has long understood how to package that emotion into compelling television. With the 2026 nominations now out and the sports world buzzing, the conversation around who deserves to win is already well underway on social media and sports talk shows alike.

Jalen Brunson’s Big Moment

If there is one name that has dominated basketball conversations over the past couple of seasons, it is Jalen Brunson. The New York Knicks point guard has quietly – and then very loudly – transformed himself from a solid NBA role player into one of the most compelling stars in the entire league. His journey from his days at Villanova, where he won two national championships and a national player of the year award, to becoming the unquestioned leader of a resurgent Knicks franchise is the kind of story that sports fans genuinely love. His nomination at the 2026 ESPYS feels not just deserved but almost inevitable given the cultural moment he is living in right now.

What makes Brunson’s story particularly compelling in the context of an awards show like the ESPYS is the setting. The ceremony is taking place in New York City – his city, his team’s city – and the Knicks faithful will almost certainly make their voices heard in whatever fan-voted categories are on the table. Brunson has become something of a folk hero in New York, a blue-collar star in a city that respects toughness and consistency above almost anything else. He has delivered big performances on the biggest stages, and his nomination reflects just how significantly the sports conversation in America has shifted to put him at the center of it.

Messi: Still the GOAT, Still Getting His Flowers

If Jalen Brunson is a rising star in his prime, then Lionel Messi is the eternal legend who simply refuses to fade. Since arriving at Inter Miami in 2023, the Argentine football icon has done something truly remarkable – he has made Major League Soccer must-watch television for casual American sports fans who previously barely knew the league existed. His presence in the United States has not just elevated Inter Miami; it has elevated the entire sport in a country that has historically been slower to embrace the beautiful game than much of the rest of the world. A 2026 ESPYS nomination for Messi is recognition of that ongoing cultural impact just as much as it is a celebration of his on-field brilliance.

The timing is also significant when you consider the broader football landscape heading into 2026. The FIFA World Cup is set to be hosted jointly by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, which means football fever is already reaching peak levels across North America. Messi, who famously lifted the World Cup trophy with Argentina in Qatar in 2022 in what many consider the greatest individual World Cup performance in history, is the living symbol of that excitement. Whether he competes in the 2026 World Cup remains a topic of much debate, but his nomination at the ESPYS cements his status as not just a global football icon but a genuine American sports celebrity – a status very few international footballers have ever truly achieved.

Alysa Liu and the Rise of Winter Sports Stars

Perhaps the most intriguing nomination among the headline names is Alysa Liu, the American figure skater who has been steadily building one of the most impressive resumes in the history of her sport. Liu burst onto the scene as a teenager when she became the youngest U.S. ladies’ figure skating champion in history at just 13 years old, and she has been delivering jaw-dropping performances ever since. Her technical ability on the ice – particularly her mastery of difficult jumps that many female skaters avoid entirely – has earned her a devoted following among figure skating fans and a growing profile in the broader sports world. A nomination at the ESPYS signals that the wider sports media is finally giving winter sports athletes the mainstream recognition they have long deserved.

Liu’s presence on the nominations list also speaks to a broader and very welcome trend at the ESPYS in recent years, which is the show’s increasing effort to spotlight athletes from sports that don’t always get the same media real estate as the NBA, NFL, or MLB. Figure skating, gymnastics, swimming, and track and field have produced some of the most extraordinary athletic stories of the past several years, and the ESPYS have become an important platform for those stories to reach a mainstream audience. Alysa Liu represents not just her own individual achievement but the entire ecosystem of winter and Olympic sports athletes who compete at extraordinary levels without always getting the spotlight they deserve.

A Loaded Nominations List Across All Categories

Beyond the three headline names, the 2026 ESPYS nominations list is impressively deep across a wide range of categories. The Best Athlete categories – broken down across individual sports and team sports – feature a combination of familiar faces and exciting newcomers who have made serious noise over the past year. The Best Team category is always one of the most hotly contested, with championship-winning franchises from multiple sports vying for the recognition. The ESPYS also tend to include some of the more emotionally resonant categories, like the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance and the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage, both of which tend to generate significant conversation and often bring genuinely moving moments to the broadcast.

Fan voting plays a significant role in many of the major ESPYS categories, which gives the show a distinctly democratic energy that sets it apart from peer-judged awards shows. This means that passionate fan bases – Knicks fans rallying for Brunson, Inter Miami supporters pushing for Messi, dedicated figure skating communities advocating for Liu – can genuinely influence the outcome. It also means the social media campaigns around the ESPYS tend to be lively, competitive, and occasionally a little chaotic in the best possible way. Sports Twitter, or whatever we are calling it these days, comes alive during ESPYS voting season in a way that is genuinely fun to watch unfold.

Why the ESPYS Still Matter in 2026

In an era where there seems to be an awards show for everything and the cultural cachet of any given ceremony can feel diluted, the ESPYS have maintained their relevance by staying true to what makes sports compelling in the first place – the stories. The best ESPYS moments are not about production value or celebrity appearances, although both are certainly part of the package. They are about the athlete who fought back from injury, the team that nobody believed in, the young competitor stepping onto the world stage for the first time. Those stories are timeless, and the ESPYS have proven to be a reliable vessel for telling them in a way that resonates with both hardcore sports fans and casual viewers tuning in for the spectacle.

With the ceremony heading to New York City in July 2026, expect the energy to be particularly electric. New York has a way of amplifying everything – the excitement, the stakes, the sense that something historic might be about to happen. Whether Jalen Brunson walks away with hardware in front of his home crowd, whether Lionel Messi adds another major recognition to an already staggering trophy cabinet, or whether Alysa Liu claims a moment that inspires a whole new generation of young skaters, the 2026 ESPYS are set up to be a memorable evening. Keep your eyes on the nominations list, place your fan votes when voting opens, and get ready for one of the most compelling nights on the sports entertainment calendar.