BURST(KTLA) — The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) has taken back at least three dozen Emmy Awards that were won by fake ESPN employees, then re-engraved and given to hosts who were ineligible for the awards, according to a report in The Athletic.
NATAS has taken back 37 awards given for the "College GameDay" program, which won multiple awards for outstanding weekly studio show.
At the time of the show's victories, on-air talent was prohibited from winning outside of individual categories to "prevent front-facing talent from winning two awards for the same work (termed 'double-dipping' in the NATAS rulebook)," The Athletic reports.
In an attempt to honor on-air talent, however, ESPN executives included employees with names "similar to the names of on-air personalities — and with identical initials," according to Katie Strang's report.
"Since at least 2010, ESPN inserted fake names in Emmy entries, then took the awards won by some of those imaginary individuals, had them re-engraved and gave them to on-air personalities," Strang reported.
Some of those who took awards intended for fictitious "associate producers" were faces of the network, such as Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso, and reporters such as Shelley Smith and Gene Wojciechowski.
The Athletic also analyzed some on-air talent's social media posts about their Emmy Awards and noted that some, such as "SportsCenter" anchor Linda Cohn, received awards for which they were not eligible.
The award winners declined to comment or could not be reached by The Athletic. In a statement, ESPN confirmed they brought in outside counsel for an investigation and "the individuals found to be responsible were disciplined by ESPN."
"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," the statement said. "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."
As a result of the revelations, NATAS has barred ESPN executives from future Emmy consideration, and the "senior leadership of 'College Gameday'" is also barred from this year's ceremony, NATAS told The Athletic.
"While it is not known who orchestrated the scheme, Craig Lazarus, vice president and executive producer of original content and features, and Lee Fitting, a senior vice president of production who oversaw 'College GameDay' and other properties, were among the ESPN employees NATAS ruled ineligible from future participation in the Emmys," the report said.