LOS ANGELES – BET announced on Thursday its nominees for the 2024 BET Awards’ ‘Sportswoman of the Year’ category.
The BET Awards, hosted by the Black Entertainment Television network, held their first ceremony June 19, 2001 to celebrate black entertainers in the world of music, television, and sports. This year’s awards will be held on June 30 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, California.
The eight nominees include familiar names such as A’ja Wilson, Angel Reese, Flau’jae Johnson, and JuJu Watkins.
Other nominees in the sportswoman category included Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, Sha’Carri Richardson and Simone Biles.
A’ja Wilson’s nomination comes shortly after Nike announced their upcoming shoe collaboration that will be available in 2025. The nomination also comes after her best career season with the national champion Las Vegas Aces in which she averaged 22.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game.
Angel Reese’s nomination comes two years after her NCAA tournament championship with the Louisiana State University Tigers and only one month after going seventh overall in the 2024 WNBA draft. Her last year at LSU, Reese averaged 18.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and recorded 62 steals. In her first regular season game with the Chicago Sky, Reese had 12 points and 8 rebounds.
Flau’jae Johnson, another member of the 2023 LSU championship team averaged 14.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and recorded 76 steals this season as a sophomore. In her freshman campaign with the Tigers, Johnson averaged 11 points, 5.9 rebounds and 42 steals. Johnson also prides herself on her music abilities and most recently released a song called ‘AMF’ with rapper NLE Choppa.
As a freshman, JuJu Watkins from the University of Southern California started in all 34 of USC’s matchups this year, including in their trip to the NCAA tournament. The Trojans advanced to the Elite Eight round of the tournament before falling to the University of Connecticut. Watkins averaged 27.1 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 3.3 assists.
This year’s awards will be held on June 30 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, California and will also stream live on BET at 8 p.m ET/PT.
Amara Bullard is a Marketing + Media student at Loyola University in Chicago aspiring to work in basketball operations.
