Some people will do whatever they can to win an award. In ESPN’s case, the sports broadcaster used fake names to win Emmys! This scam may have been going on for decades!
The Athletic (The New York Times Company-owned sports website) published a story last week concerning ESPN’s Emmy fraud, which spans as far back as 1997. The media giant is accused of dropping names of non-existent people into the bucket when making Emmy entries.
If one of these fictitious people won the coveted award, ESPN would have the statue modified. The fake name would be removed and rebranded. These re-gifted awards would now have the names of ESPN’s on-air personalities. Some of the staff who were given these re-engraved Emmys were:
- Kirk Herbstreit
- Lee Corso
- Chris Fowler
- Desmond Howard
- Samantha Ponder
An investigation from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences concluded that over 30 Emmy awards were possibly snatched up. NATAS also concluded that ESPN vice presidents Craig Lazarus and Lee Fitting are banned from participating in future Emmys.
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences had the following to say in an e-mail to The Athletic:
“NATAS identified a number of fictitious credits submitted by ESPN to multiple Sports Emmys competitions. When brought to the attention of ESPN senior management, the network took steps to take responsibility for the actions of its personnel, to investigate thoroughly, and to course correct. These steps have included the return by ESPN of statuettes issued to fictitious individuals and commitments to implement further internal accountability and procedural changes at the network.“
ESPN issued a statement on the matter:
“Some members of our team were clearly wrong in submitting certain names that may go back to 1997 in Emmy categories where they were not eligible for recognition or statuettes. This was a misguided attempt to recognize on-air individuals who were important members of our production team. Once current leadership was made aware, we apologized to NATAS for violating guidelines and worked closely with them to completely overhaul our submission process to safeguard against anything like this happening again.“
The Walt Disney Company has owned ESPN since 1996, when the Mouse acquired the sports station’s parent company, ABC.
[Source: The Athletic]
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