How Awards Are a Year Behind

I hate that when you refer to the year something wins an award, it actually happened in the previous year. Like people will say The King’s Speech won the Oscar for best picture in 2011, but in reality it was the best picture of 2010. Shouldn’t the award be called the 2010 award? I find this same phenomenon with the cover of Madden. In a year a player has success, but the year they are on is delayed by two years. Peyton Hillis had a great year in 2010, and is on the cover of 2012. His 2011 has been forgettable, and at this rate he’ll be out of the league in 2012? Why can’t they just name things for the years they actually occurred?