ESPN apologized to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences following a report by The Athletic that divulged that the network had fabricated names in order to garner more Emmy Award trophies. With the Sports Emmy Awards taking place on Tuesday night in New York City, the network secured eight victories recognizing excellence in innovation, its NFL coverage and Mike Breen for his work as a play-by-play announcer. Moreover, College GameDay attained its 14th Sports Emmy award win by being named the winner in the “Outstanding Studio Show – Weekly” category. Pat McAfee joined the cast of the program last season and worked alongside host Rece Davis, analysts Desmond Howard, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit.
Herbstreit, who has been a member of the show since 1996, has been a part of several of its award victories and displayed the physical trophies on the mantle in his home. In reality, the physical trophies were granted to faux associate producers with names similar to on-air talent. These plaques were then subsequently re-engraved to have the name of the on-air personalities before the statuettes were delivered to them. During a recent appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Herbstreit outlined his perspective surrounding the incident, which ultimately led to eight Emmy trophies being taken out of his home.
“For people that don’t know, when College GameDay or any of these shows win an Emmy – when the show does – I was naïve to the whole thing,” Herbstreit said. “I thought the people on the set would get an Emmy, so all these years, I didn’t know what was going on. I was not privy to that information, [and] I just thought, ‘Hey, it finally came. Where’s this been?,’ and I stuck it on the mantle and we kind of moved on.”
Herbstreit stated that he received a call that the trophies were granted to them in error and that they would need to be taken back by the organization. When he revealed that he was not at home, the organization said that it would come to get the trophies out of the residence. After investigations by both the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and ESPN, additional sanctions were placed upon members of the network. Craig Lazarus and Lee Fitting, the latter of whom left ESPN last August, were ruled ineligible for future participation in the Emmys.
“They went down and got them and took eight of my 13 of them out of the house, and then I guess – again, I don’t follow this as closely as a lot of the people – I think after that, they changed the rule, I think, and now if GameDay wins one, now I think guys like you – all the schleps – guys like me and you and Des and Rece, Coach, I think we… legally get one,” Herbstreit said. “I think technically it’s our ninth, but it would be our first one that we actually are supposed to actually have in our house.”
