College GameDay Emmy scandal

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Wikipedia

A 2007 taping of College GameDay. The three men at the desk (from left to right: Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, and Kirk Herbstreit) all received Sports Emmy Awards statuettes as part of the scandal.[1]

In January 2024, The Athletic reported on a scandal wherein ESPN had fraudulently received Sports Emmy Awards statuettes from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS).

Beginning in at least 2010 and possibly going back as far as 1997, ESPN had listed fake names in the credit list for its College GameDay program. These names were similar to the names of actual ESPN employees who were ineligible to receive the awards—for example, "Lee Clark" and "Kirk Henry" were listed as "associate producers" on the show, which has Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit as on-air personalities. After receiving the statuettes, ESPN would then have them re-engraved with the actual names of the individuals and presented to them.

This practice was first discovered by NATAS in 2022, prompting an investigation by both the academy and ESPN. While the parties responsible for the fraud were not disclosed, several ESPN employees were barred from future Emmys participation and at least one was fired. There is no evidence to suggest that the people who received the awards were aware of the fraud. Since 2023, ESPN has returned 37 fraudulently-won statuettes to the academy.

Background

The Sports Emmy Awards are awards given in recognition of artistic and technical merit in sports television.[2] They are administered by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), which also administers Emmy Awards in other categories of television broadcasting.[1] ESPN, an American broadcast sports network, has been well-represented in the awards, with the channel's programming having won a total of 246 awards as of 2024.[3]

Until 2023, NATAS guidelines barred on-air talent on sports shows from being nominated for both individual awards and awards intended to recognize a television program as a whole.[1] For instance, a sports analyst could be nominated for Outstanding Sports Personality, Studio and Sports Event Analyst, but could not also be included in the credit list for a show nominated for Outstanding Studio Show.[1][4] These guidelines were intended to prevent an on-air personality from winning more than one award for a single work (a practice dubbed "double-dipping" by NATAS).[1][5][6]

Scandal

On January 11, 2024, The Athletic—the sports journalism department of The New York Times[6]—became the first news source to report on a scandal concerning ESPN fabricating information in order to win Emmy awards that they would have otherwise been ineligible for.[5][7] Per Katie Strang of The Athletic, in 2022, NATAS revamped their process for verifying the credit lists for shows nominated for Sports Emmy Awards.[1] The academy subsequently reached out to ESPN to verify certain names that had been listed in the credits of shows aired by the network.[1] ESPN informed the academy that some names were fake, and both organizations proceeded to launch investigations into the matter.[1]

College GameDay hosts Lee Corso (center) and Kirk Herbstreit (right) received statuettes that had been won by fictional individuals "Lee Clark" and "Kirk Henry", respectively.[1]

The scandal primarily concerned College GameDay, a popular program on ESPN that had won eight awards for Outstanding Studio Show, Weekly from 2008 to 2018.[1][8][9] According to Strang, during that time period, fake names were included in the credit list for the show under the title of "associate producers".[1] These names were similar to and bore the same initials as the names of several of the show's on-air personalities, who were ineligible for receiving an award won by the show by the academy's "double-dipping" rules.[1] For example, the show's credit list for several seasons had "Lee Clark", "Chris Fulton", "Kirk Henry", and "Tim Richard" listed as executive producers, while the show's on-air personalities included Lee Corso, Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Tom Rinaldi.[1][10] According to Strang, awards won by these fictitious people were received by ESPN, who would then have the statuettes re-engraved with the names of the actual people, who would then receive the awards.[1][7]

There is no evidence that the on-air personalities were aware that the awards had been obtained in this manner.[5][9] In a May 2024 interview on The Pat McAfee Show, Herbstreit told Pat McAfee,[11]

I was naive to the whole thing. I thought obviously the people on the set would get an Emmy. So, all these years I didn't know that, I didn't know what was going on. I was not privy to that information. I just thought, 'Hey it finally came. Where's it been?' I stuck it on the mantle and we kind of move on.

While ESPN did not publicly disclose the parties responsible for the scandal, several employees, including vice presidents Lee Fitting and Craig Lazarus, were deemed ineligible to participate in future Emmys events.[1][12][13] Additionally, NATAS imposed a one-year eligibility ban on the senior leadership of College GameDay.[9][13] Several employees who had been involved received disciplinary action from ESPN.[14][15] On January 12, 2024, ESPN said that the scandal went back to at least 2010 and may have started as early as 1997,[1][16] while multiple sources reported that the scandal went back to at least 2007.[4][6]

Following the discovery of the scandal, NATAS requested that ESPN return several awards that had been obtained in this manner.[1] Shelley Smith, who had been an on-air reporter for ESPN since 1997, was asked to return two statuettes,[1] while Herbstreit said that eight of the 13 statuettes he owned were returned.[11] In August of that year, Fitting was fired by ESPN after 25 years of employment at the company.[1] Sports journalist Andrew Marchand later reported that the scandal had been "a factor" in Fitting's firing.[10] By January 2024, ESPN had returned 37 improperly-won statuettes to the academy.[1][8][17] Per Sports Illustrated, these 37 awards were all received by College GameDay.[12]

Response

In a statement released on January 12, 2024, ESPN said, "Some members of our team were clearly wrong in submitting certain names" and that "This was a misguided attempt to recognize on-air individuals who were important members of our production team".[7] ESPN also stated that they had worked with NATAS to overhaul their submissions process to avoid something similar from happening in the future.[14] NATAS stated that, after alerting ESPN to the scandal, "the network took steps to take responsibility for the actions of its personnel, to investigate thoroughly, and to course correct".[5]

Multiple individuals who had to return their Emmy statuettes expressed disappointment in the situation. Smith said that the actions of the producers in fraudulently gaining the statuettes for her and her colleagues had been "really crummy".[1] Speaking a few days after the story became public, Desmond Howard—a College GameDay host who also received fraudulent statuettes—expressed frustration over the fact that Corso had to return his statuettes, saying, "They're taking that old man's Emmy's? If they’re going to take his, you can have all of mine. I’ll break these damn things. ... I said 'How could y'all even let this happen to him?' I was fucked up over that. I'll break all of them. Take 'em in pieces. That’s how much they mean to me."[18]

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