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ESPN forced to return fake Emmy Awards

Published on 23 Comments on ESPN forced to return fake Emmy Awards

What a bizarre story we have today. According to the rules of the Sports Emmys, on-air talent is not eligible to win an overall award for a show. (They have their own category.) But ESPN wanted them to win anyway:

ESPN circumvented the rule by inserting fake names into the credit list it submitted to NATAS for “College GameDay.” The Athletic reviewed the credit lists for the years the show won: 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. In each one of those seven years, names similar to the names of on-air personalities — and with identical initials — were listed all under the title of “associate producers.”

Kirk Henry (Kirk Herbstreit), Lee Clark (Lee Corso), Dirk Howard (Desmond Howard), and Tim Richard (Tom Rinaldi) appeared in all seven years. Steven Ponder (Sam Ponder) and Gene Wilson (Gene Wojciechowski) appeared in five from 2014-18. Chris Fulton (Chris Fowler) appeared in 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2015. Shelley Saunders (Shelley Smith) appeared in the 2010 credit list.

When the statuettes were received, ESPN had them re-engraved and then delivered them to the hosts. By all accounts, the hosts had no idea this was happening.

What the hell gets into people, anyway?

23 thoughts on “ESPN forced to return fake Emmy Awards”

  2. different_name

    Some people apparently get paid for having way too much time on their hands.

    I've only seen this at one place first-hand (A certain conglomerate that owns a lot of magazine brands you're familiar with) when I did contract work for them a long time ago. But you've also got Ebay terrorizing people[1] and HBO execs sockpuppeting to troll people who annoy them [2].

    I have to assume people you'd assume had better things to do have always been this petty and stupid, and it is just now easier to get caught and also more likely to become widely known.

    But damn, if nothing else, the last decade should have killed the notion that money and status == intelligence, common sense or decency. Alas.

    [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/sep/29/ebay-executive-sentenced-couple-harassment-newsletter

    [2] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/hbo-chief-casey-bloys-fake-twitter-accounts-1235634912/

  3. Joseph Harbin

    “You have to remember that those personalities are so important, and they have egos.” Smith, for one, pushed back at that and remarked how some executives lined their office shelves with statuettes. One executive interviewed during ESPN’s probe said that some company leaders were obsessed with the Emmys, using the numbers of wins each year to prove their dominance over competitors: “It’s very important to the people who go (to the ceremony) and the old-school television guys.” Additionally, many at ESPN thought the rule preventing on-air personalities from getting statuettes for a win by the show was stupid. They may have just decided to do something about it, the rules be damned.

    The world of sports and sports journos are dominated by 5-year-olds who never want to grow up.

    At least we learned one thing. The ESPNers, unlike the Houston Astros*, had to give back their trophies. The Emmys, for the win.

    * Still sore.

    1. aldoushickman

      I'll certainly cop to my own biases, but I've always been astonished that sports "journalists" wear suits on tv. It's like a pantomime, or children pretending to be adults or something.

      1. RicoU

        If it makes you feel better, they are probably wearing sneakers with their suits. Such a ridiculous look on [supposedly] grown men.

    1. Art Eclectic

      Talent of all kinds has to be massaged, the bigger the talent, the bigger the trailer and massaging required. Enough whining from your talent and you might be tempted to push the rules to keep them doing the things that keep your paycheck showing up.

  7. J. Frank Parnell

    I used to work for a company that was a vendor to an airplane manufacturer that has been in the news a lot lately. I don't know if the problem is midlevel managers who are dumb as bricks but don't know it and are willing to say or do anything to impress upper management and get ahead, or upper management who are stupid and undiscerning enough to hire and promote such people.

      1. J. Frank Parnell

        from Wikipedia: "The Peter principle states that a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills. If the promoted person lacks the skills required for the new role, they will be incompetent at the new level, and will not be promoted again"

        Some of the people I dealt with had already been promoted far beyond their incompetence level. They couldn't really do their designated job, but were good at keeping upper management fat, happy and stupid.

  8. iamr4man

    Some people like awards and it matters not to them if they did nothing to earn them. For more on this, ask Donald Trump.

  10. realrobmac

    In FSU town the collective opinion of ESPN was already extremely low. And now this.

    IMO it lends credence to the theory that ESPN worked behind the scenes (and gave marching orders to on air personalities) to create a narrative where FSU did not belong in the CFP invitational, and then used influence on the committee to vote for two 1 loss teams over undefeated FSU. These are bad people with no shame. (Except for old man Lee Corso. He's an FSU guy so he's OK :))

  11. seitz26

    This is such a dumb story. On the one hand, ESPN, just find a trophy maker to make bunch of replica statuettes and hand them out if it means so much to everyone. On the other hand, giving out statuettes to the entire crew and not to the on air talent is like giving world series rings to the bat boys and peanut vendors, but not to the players. Fix the stupid rule. The show legitimately won the awards (presumably). Who cares who gets the actual trophies?

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