ESPN Used Fake Names To Get Emmy Awards For Reporters
 

This is just very sad to me. I remember staying up to watch MNF and at least get to halftime because that was when you could get highlight reels from all of the games. And KC's games were generally one of the last ones shown because we were so bad.

College football was all the same teams - USC; Notre Dame; Nebraska. There was no way that your little college program was getting on national television. You could be a sports fan but if you were a fan of a team outside your area, good luck trying to get any sort of coverage. And hockey, NBA or college basketball? Good luck trying to find broadcasts of anything but the championships or top 4 teams.

And then ESPN comes along. They literally revolutionized sports TV and broadcasting. Informative and educational, they provided access to sports you could not otherwise see. And you didn't have to wait until the next day to see it.

Now, though, they rig the game to get awards when they're not entitled to them. Looks like College Game Day was the biggest 'beneficiary' of this scam, although it also appears that the on-air talent was not aware of some of the schemes. Just very sad.

Article is here:

https://theathletic.com/5193316/2024...llege-gameday/

It's from the athletic so here's the first few paragraphs:

"In March 2023, Shelley Smith, who worked 26 years as an on-air reporter for ESPN, received a call from Stephanie Druley, then the network’s head of studio and event production. Druley said she wanted to talk about something “serious” that needed to stay between the two of them, Smith recalled. She then told Smith that Smith needed to return two sports Emmy statuettes that she had been given more than a decade earlier.

"That request was one of many ESPN made of some of its biggest stars last year after the 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 of the coveted statuettes for on-air talent ineligible to receive them. Since at least 2010, ESPN inserted fake names in Emmy entries, then took the awards won by some of those imaginary individuals, had them re-engraved and gave them to on-air personalities.

"Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Chris Fowler, Desmond Howard and Samantha Ponder, among others, were given the ill-gotten Emmys, according to a source briefed on the matter, who was granted anonymity because the individual is not authorized to discuss it publicly. There is no evidence that the on-air individuals were aware the Emmys given to them were improperly obtained."

I can't wait to watch the 30 for 30 on this.

Hi I'm Bob Ley. Tonight on Outside the Lines...

awards shows are fake and gay

Don't understand the scandal. They sent in nominations for fake people and those people won and they redistributed trophies to people who didn't win but are real?

They submitted fake names as part of the production team and redistributed the awards to on air talent that were ineligible to win the awards.

Why?

If Angie Ricono can win an Emmy then a lot of those names should get one too.

ESPN employees should only be allowed to win ESPY’s going forward.

ESPN is a trash organization but so are the Emmy's apparently.

Whitlock decapitates ESPN’s highest profile on air talent… Stephen A. Myth… and now this.

Rough times for ESPN.

I don't understand the game being played here, but I'm coming away with the conclusion that ESPN is as morally bankrupt as the NFL and peacock.

Still not even close to the Broncos.

That's got to be the measuring stick, right?

On a air personalities cant win individual awards given to shows. For example if College Game Day wins an Emmy for best college sports program none of the on air people can win an individual award for that show.

So they made up fake producers/production people and entered their names to win production Emmy's and then when they won them they had the trophy reengraved and gave them to the on air personalities.

Ahh, that makes sense now.


Truthfully, I'm kind of with ESPN on this one. The on air personalities are just as much a part of the team as producers and writers, so yeah, I think they deserve the award too.

Yeah, this is less of a scandal than the headline makes it out to be. The wins are legitimate, they just ran a scam to get extra trophies for the on-air personalities.

They should call them Shooter McGavin awards.

What’s an Emmy?

I hope everyone at ESPN dies!!!

Soooo, it's a nothing burger then. I can see why they'd do it

So they just wanted extra trophies to give people. Couldn’t they just buy them?

But don't the on air personalities have their own categories for awards?

I suppose that zillions of people reading these lines is not exactly what Ms Druley had in mind. :doh!:

The rules were changed a couple years back. On air personalities are now eligible for both.

They will one of these days, I guarantee it.


Why does anyone care about this anyway?

Because they didn't need to do this. It's just more pointless bullshit. I guess 'disappointed' is a better word to convey that at one point ESPN shook up the sports reporting world and now they're just another corporate shill. No, it's not a surprise. Just a disappointment.

I have no idea. Awards shows are gay.

But the on air talent is fake - so doesn't that even out?...