Whose MVP?

 No, that’s not a grammatical mistake. I’m not interested in learning who’s an MVP. I’m interested in the selection process for the group whose job it is to confer this nebulous honor.

 

The Big Four sports all have MVP voting. Is there one legislative body somewhere tasked with establishing universal MVP criteria? Or does each league establish its own? Or, I wonder, and probably doubt, whether any hard and fast guidelines are written down at all.

 

I’ve heard good questions raised on what constitutes an MVP. Is he the player most valuable to his team? Is he the player who puts the most eyes on HDTV screens? Is he the player who gives the best quotes to lazy, donut-munching sportswriters in post-game interviews? Without hard-wired selection criteria to these or similar questions, how can there be meaningful voting?

 

But wait, there’s more! What body determines just who gets a voting seat at the MVP table? And what are that body’s criteria for selecting voters?

 

If no one is in charge at any level of MVP selection, then I guess MVPs are, like free advice, worth every penny. John Kenneth Galbraith quipped that “Economics is very useful as a form of employment for economists.” I’m going to snark that around just a bit to claim MVP discussions are very useful as a form of employment for sportswriters.