J.J. Watt and José Altuve Receive Sports Illustrated’s 2017 Sportsperson of the Year Award

Time Inc.’s (NYSE: TIME) SPORTS ILLUSTRATED today announced that Houston athletes J.J. Watt of the Texans and José Altuve of the World Series Champion Astros have been named SPORTS ILLUSTRATED’s 2017 Sportspersons of the Year. The pair will accept the honor at SI’s Sportsperson of the Year Award Show on December 5 at Barclays Center in New York. The show will be televised nationally for the first time, airing on NBCSN at 8 p.m. ET on December 8 and on Univision Deportes Network at 8 p.m. ET on December 9.

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SI Cover - 2017 Sportsperson of the Year

Watt and Altuve are recognized for their contributions both on and off the field and for embodying this year’s key theme of “Athletes Who Care.” The two are featured together on the cover of SI’s annual Sportsperson of the Year issue and in new profiles spotlighting their impact. Read more about the choice and check out behind-the-scenes footage from their joint photo shoot on SI.com/Sportsperson.

“We will remember 2017 as much for what athletes strove to achieve off the field as for what they achieved on it,” said Chris Stone, Editorial Director of Sports at Time Inc. “While J.J. and José represent two very different paths, they both led to the same destination: #HoustonStrong. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of SI’s original ‘Athletes Who Care’ Sportsperson of the Year honor, which recognizes players who transcended sport alone. This year once again we celebrate a new generation of athletes who care, in all senses of the word: caring about humanitarian efforts, about social and political justice, about their communities and about their crafts.”

The Houston Texans’ Watt raised more than $37 million in Hurricane Harvey relief aid and served as a beacon for what an athlete can do with their platform beyond sports. As Peter King, Editor in Chief of The MMQB, points out, “Nothing J.J. Watt has achieved in his career, or might still achieve, will measure up to what he did for Houston.”

Said Watt: “All I did was give people a way to help… If I’m going to get an award, I feel like over 200,000 other people should too.”

Altuve, the Houston Astros’ second baseman and American League MVP, is an inspirational story about a consistently underestimated player who rose to the top of his sport. The three-time batting champion was a key part of the team that brought Houston its first World Series Championship. He is recognized for giving back and inspiring a community when it needed it most.