ESPN has returned dozens of Emmy Awards and disciplined employees involved in a decades-long scheme to secure trophies for ineligible on-air personalities by submitting fake names for consideration, according to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) and the sports network.
On Thursday, internal investigations by the academy and ESPN discovered that employees of the sports network had been submitting made-up names to the Emmy organization to obtain, if they won, more than 30 additional trophies for television personalities who were not eligible. to receive them.
Since at least 2010, ESPN employees attached fake names to awards entries, the network said in a statement, and the scheme may have dated back to 1997. When ESPN won an award and trophies were awarded to all names submitted, the employees took the extra money. trophies and re-engraved them with the names of the talents in the air.
“NATAS identified a series of fictitious credits submitted by ESPN to multiple Sports Emmy competitions,” the academy, which administers the Daytime, Sports, News and Documentary Emmy Awards, told The Times in a statement.
“When ESPN senior management was informed, the network took steps to take responsibility for the actions of its staff, fully investigate and correct course. These steps have included ESPN's return of statuettes issued to fictitious individuals and commitments to implement greater internal accountability and procedural changes at the network,” NATAS said.
After NATAS discovered the fictitious presentations and launched an investigation, ESPN followed suit. The findings resulted in disciplinary action and at least 37 trophies returned. The Athletic, which broke the story Thursday, reported that it is not known exactly who orchestrated the plan, but Craig Lazarus, vice president and executive producer of original content and features, and Lee Fiting, senior vice president of production who oversaw “College GameDay” until who were fired last summer, were among the sports network employees who were banned from participating in future Sports Emmys presentations.
“College GameDay,” a cultural phenomenon and moneymaker for the network, earned eight Emmy Awards for best weekly studio show from 2008 to 2018. NATAS guidelines prohibited, until 2023, broadcast personalities from being included in a list of credits for that specific category. . They were eligible for other Emmy awards, such as host or studio analyst, but a win for the show would not grant any statuettes for on-air talent.
ESPN employees got around the rule by including made-up names listed as “associate producers” (who happened to have the same initials as the on-air talent) and then deleting the figurines of the fake names, according to the Athletic. After engraving the talents' real names on the trophies, the people involved presented them to the stars in front of ESPN cameras, who told The Athletic that they didn't know anything was incomplete.
“Some members of our team clearly erred in submitting certain names that may date back to 1997 in Emmy categories where they were not eligible for recognition or statuettes,” an ESPN spokesperson said in a statement obtained by The Times.
“This was a misguided attempt to recognize people on air who were important members of our production team. “Once current leadership found out, we apologized to NATAS for violating the guidelines and worked closely with them to completely review our submission process to protect against something like this happening again.”
