Nick Daicos goes into Brownlow Medal night as the clearest favourite the award has had in years, and the question is no longer really whether he wins it but by how much. The AFL’s own Brownlow Predictor has the Collingwood midfielder on 47 votes, thirteen ahead of the next player on its list. If the count lands anywhere near that, he does not just win — he takes the record.
The Record He Is Chasing
The mark to beat is 45, set by Patrick Cripps in 2024. Before that, the three-vote-era record had stood at 36, shared by Dustin Martin and Ollie Wines. Cripps cleared it by nine in a single season, and two years later a projection exists that clears Cripps by two.
That escalation is worth pausing on. Umpires have been handing out votes on the same 3-2-1 basis for decades, so a rising ceiling says something about how the modern game concentrates possession through a small number of midfielders rather than about umpiring drift. A player who touches the ball 35 times a game is difficult for three umpires to overlook.
Why Daicos Polls So Heavily
Daicos averaged 34.9 disposals, a goal, 5.7 clearances and four marks a game across the home-and-away season. The goal matters more than it looks: votes reward midfielders who are visible at both ends, and a midfielder who scores is being judged on something the umpires can point at.
He has also been polling at this level for a while. Across four seasons he has accumulated 109 votes, including 32, 38 and 28 in the past three — any one of which would have won several earlier counts outright. A Collingwood win would be the club’s first since Dane Swan in 2011, and its tenth overall.
The Chasing Pack
The AFL’s club-by-club guide names a best chance at every side, and a handful have a real claim on the podium rather than just their own club’s slot.
Geelong’s Bailey Smith was on the podium last season and passed 30 disposals in 17 of his 22 games. Marcus Bontempelli remains the Western Bulldogs’ most credible contender. Max Gawn polled 23 votes last year on the back of a nine-time All-Australian career and, by the AFL’s reading, has had a stronger 2026 — a ruckman winning would be the genuine upset of the night.
Below them the guide points to Izak Rankine’s finish for Adelaide, Will Ashcroft’s consistency at Brisbane, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera’s late surge for St Kilda in a five-week stretch of 44 and 46 disposal games, and Harry Sheezel adding goals to his numbers at North Melbourne. Two names are absent for structural reasons rather than form: Port Adelaide’s Zak Butters, who had polled 20-plus votes in each of the previous three seasons, suffered a season-ending injury in round 18, and West Coast’s Harley Reid is ineligible.
Sydney’s case is the interesting one, and it is a case against itself. Isaac Heeney started the year brilliantly, but the Swans spread votes across so many players that no single name accumulates. A team that shares the ball evenly is a team that does not produce a medallist.
Favourites Do Lose This
They lose it often enough that the record is worth keeping in view. Matt Rowell won in 2025 from fifth in the pre-count reckoning, with 39 votes. Lachie Neale came from a similar position in 2023. Both counts were regarded as settled beforehand and were not.
The mechanism is straightforward. Votes are awarded by the three field umpires after each match, and nobody outside that room knows what they wrote. A projection is a model of umpire behaviour built from the public statistical record, and umpires watch a game, not a stat sheet. The gap between those two things is where every Brownlow upset has ever come from — and it widens in matches where a player’s influence was obvious in the stadium and unremarkable on paper.
Rowell’s win is the useful precedent for anyone treating 47 votes as a formality. So is the shape of Daicos’s own projection: a lead of thirteen absorbs a great deal of error before it stops mattering, which is precisely why this year feels different from 2025.
The count is broadcast live on Channel Seven from 7:30pm and streamed free on 7+ Sport. You can find the rest of our sport coverage in all articles.
What the Brownlow Medal Is, and Who Is Favoured
What is the Brownlow Medal?
The Brownlow Medal is the AFL’s award for the best and fairest player of the home-and-away season, decided by the umpires rather than by media or coaches. After every match the three field umpires confer and award three votes to the player they judge best afield, two to the second-best and one to the third — which is why it is known as the 3-2-1 count. The votes stay sealed until they are read out, match by match, on Brownlow night. It is named after Charles Brownlow, a Geelong player and administrator, and a player who is suspended during the season becomes ineligible to win it.
Who is favourite to win the 2026 Brownlow Medal?
Nick Daicos of Collingwood, by a wide margin — the AFL’s Brownlow Predictor projects him to finish on 47 votes, thirteen clear of the next player. Bailey Smith, Marcus Bontempelli and Max Gawn are the most credible challengers, all off All-Australian seasons. Favouritism is not a guarantee: Matt Rowell won in 2025 from fifth in the reckoning, and the umpires’ votes are unknown to everyone until they are read on the night.