Last week, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) announced the nominees for the Sports Emmy Awards, which take place on Tuesday, May 21 from New York City. Much to the chagrin of those on the Dan Patrick Show, the program was not among the list of nominees within the category of “Outstanding Studio Show – Daily.” Dan Patrick broke the news to the Danettes and members of the audience during Tuesday’s edition of the program, which now only has three more attempts to be nominated before its planned conclusion at the end of 2027.
Patrick acknowledged that he should have mentioned the news on Monday’s program, but added that he needed another 24 hours to process the news because it was painful. He did not mention the topic to ask for sympathy or beg for a nomination; rather, he felt bad about coming up short for the Danettes and audience. Patrick himself has won an award at the ceremony before, but he wants the program to win one before it concludes.
“We’ve got three more tries and then that’s it because I don’t want to get one posthumously,” Patrick said. “When I’m dead, and all of a sudden they say, ‘You know what? On second thought, we should have honored that show because that show did spawn a lot of other shows.’ You don’t have Pat McAfee without this show; you don’t have [Dan] Le Batard without this show. We’ve left a legacy, but it’d be nice with a Sports Emmy for that legacy.”
Patrick “Seton” O’Connor contributed to the discussion by explaining that he believes the Danettes would be neglected if the show was to be honored in this manner. Dan Patrick replied by stating that someone would have to be there to pick it up, and he yielded permission for the Danettes to attend the ceremony to do so. Additionally, he has a plan to bypass the rule that only one person is allowed to speak on behalf of the show while accepting the honor.
“I would like for everybody to speak at the same time, so when they say, ‘Here on behalf of the Dan Patrick Show, it’s Todd Fritz, Seton O’Connor, Marvin Prince and Pauly Pabst,’ and then you guys go up there collectively and then you start the acceptance speech,” Patrick said.
After everyone in the studio simulated what such a speech would sound like, Pabst divulged the nominees within the category, which includes MLB Tonight, NBA Countdown, NFL Live, Pardon The Interruption and SportsCenter. Fritz, however, believes that the show is not classified correctly within the categories because of the topics being covered.
“They need to kind of look into some other categories because so many times we’re put against shows and it doesn’t match up with the traditional sports talk show and other programs,” Fritz explained. “They’re highlight shows – they’re very different than what we do.”
As the discussion continued, Patrick opined that if the nominating committee saw what it took to put everything together for the Dan Patrick Show, the program would win a Sports Emmy Award every year. O’Connor countered with another possibility that it would devalue the nominating process and does not want to win an award in a category for “Best radio show on TV.” Instead, he wants to beat the other people in this category, mentioning how he wants to win the award over the people who work on SportsCenter.
“We’re going up against behemoths,” Patrick said. “It’s just us – we’re just a couple of guys here in a converted tool rental place. I’ve got guys doing jobs they never did before, but you know what, that’s the beauty of it.”
