In a shocking report from The Athletic, ESPN put fake names in Emmy award entries, won awards with those names, took them and had them re-engraved and gave them to on-air personalities.
The report said the network had been doing this since “at least 2010,” and that Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Chris Fowler, Desmond Howard, Samantha Ponder, Shelley Smith, Tom Rinaldi and Gene Wojciechowski, among others, were given the ill-gotten Emmys.
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How the ESPN fake names plot worked to get Emmy awards
The Athletic’s reporting shows that ESPN would use fake names with the same initials as the on-air personalities in the entries. Fake names were submitted in the seven years The Athletic reviewed the entries.
National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), the organization that administers the Emmys, uncovered a scheme that the network used to acquire more than 30 Emmys for on-air talent ineligible to receive them, which prompted an investigation by that organization and later by ESPN, the report says.
According to the report, the reason for someone submitting false names to win the Emmys is because while hosts, analysts and reporters on “College GameDay” could win individual awards, they were not eligible to take home a trophy for a win by the show. NATAS calls that “double-dipping” and has put in rules to prevent that from happening.
The Athletic ran a statement from ESPN that read: “Some members of our team were clearly wrong in submitting certain names that may go back to 1997 in Emmy categories where they were not eligible for recognition or statuettes. This was a misguided attempt to recognize on-air individuals who were important members of our production team. Once current leadership was made aware, we apologized to NATAS for violating guidelines and worked closely with them to completely overhaul our submission process to safeguard against anything like this happening again.”