CarterMatt Awards 2016 results: Mark Cuban of ‘Shark Tank,’ Kelly Dodd of ‘RHOC’ tie for Best Reality Star

One of the most interesting things about reality TV in general is how all-encompassing it can be. You can have a competition show about contestants doing bad impressions, and have it still be classified in the same exact breath as a show about fisherman risking their lives off the coast of Alaska. This genre appeals to such a wide array of people, and features a wide array of people to go along with it.

There’s no better example of the genre’s variety than the two winners this year of the CarterMatt Award for Best Reality Star: Mark Cuban of “Shark Tank,” and Kelly Dodd of “The Real Housewives of Orange County.”

Before we do anything else, it’s important to start things off by discussing the results, given that the tie was not by design. It’s something that rarely ever happen here, and it just comes down to how many votes are cast at the end of the voting period. There’s no real mechanism for a tiebreaker; we’re not going to try and round up every person who voted and tell them to go and do it again! Cuban and Dodd tied with 28% of the vote, while the third-place finisher in Ryan Ashley Malarkey from “Ink Master” had 23%. All in all, this was a very close race.

The reasons why these two received so many votes is also likely very different. For Cuban, much of it probably stems from him being a tough-but-fair counterbalance to “Mr. Wonderful” Kevin O’Leary in the Tank, and from him being a popular figure outside of it due to the Dallas Mavericks and his business ventures. Meanwhile, Dodd was the focus of much of the new season of the Bravo series, as she had the challenge of trying to assimilate into a group of women with incredibly strong opinions and established relationships. She certainly had many opinions of her own, and they led to several of the more notable moments and confrontations this season.

Reality Star is one of the few awards that we’ve given out every year since we first started the CarterMatt Awards in 2012; some of the past winners include Dan Gheesling of “Big Brother” (2012), Marie Mazzocchi of “The Amazing Race” (2013), Emily Elegado of “Ink Master” (2014), and Sawyer Fredericks of “The Voice” (2015.)

Do you think the right people in this case won, or do you have a better winner in mind? Let us know below.