As covered yesterday, Mark Walhberg is my unfortunate prediction for PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive 2017. Is he sexy? F-ck no. Not to me. Not to many of you. But, again, this it the PEOPLE demographic. He’s pretty popular with the MiniVan Majority. Also it’s those Calvin Klein ads. I call this memory blindness. It’s the same with Leonardo DiCaprio. You remember him from Titanic and Romeo & Juliet. That’s the image of him that’s stuck in your mind. It f-cks with your eyesight. That why a lot of people still think Marky Mark is hot. They don’t actually SEE him as he looks now. They see him and the Calvin Klein ads fall over their eyes like a screen. 

Anyway, some of you tweeted and messaged that Sterling K Brown and Milo Ventimiglia should be handicapped for their chances. Between them, if they really do have a chance, I think Sterling probably has the edge. But let’s break them down together. 

Arguments for:
- The popularity of This Is Us, the most successful network drama in years. 
- This Is Us is probably the Jennifer Aniston of TV shows for the MiniVan Majority. 
- Sterling K Brown is the most decorated member of that cast. He’s cleaned up at the award shows the last couple of years. And he has a playful, engaging, sexy personality. 
- Again, the SMA is not often a man of colour. The selection of a prominent and proud black man as SMA would represent the diversity that PEOPLE claims to be committed to. 
- Milo brings with him his television popularity from Gilmore Girls and Heroes. He’s attained a certain amount of recognisability. 
- PEOPLE could actually make history and select both of them together? It’d be a new interesting take on the SMA for sure.

Arguments against:
- Patrick Dempsey. 
- Grey’s Anatomy was once what This Is Us is now. I know it’s easy to forget because Grey’s has been on forever but the hype around Grey’s was major. Everyone was obsessed with McDreamy. And McDreamy was half of a classic on-off television romance that had audiences deeply invested. McDreamy was a big deal for the MiniVan Majority. And Patrick had and still has such great hair. 
- Still. Patrick Dempsey was never the Sexiest Man Alive. Not even once. As far as the SMA is concerned, historically television is film’s poor sibling. 
- But we are in the time of Peak TV, right? We are. And that certainly improves possibilities for Sterling and Milo. But also? While the Sexiest Man Alive is chosen from an American sensibility, he has to also be exportable. Everyone knows The Rock. He’s famous in America and in Australia and Asia. This Is Us may be available in certain international markets but it’s not a universally accessible property. Which means that while both Sterling and Milo are known in North America and even in the UK, they may not meet the “ALIVE” part of the SMA in the sense of their reach. This is why traditionally the SMA is movie stars. Movies go around the world. Music probably goes around the world more than television. And don’t forget, Peak TV also means that we have so many more options, there are so many of them. And so we don’t all watch the same ones. That fragmentation may hurt their chances.  

Odds for Sterling: 15 to 1
Odds for Milo: 20 to 1