ESPN has had a foul called on it by The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), resulting in the return of at least three dozen Emmys, according to The Athletic.
The show "College GameDay," was cited for winning two awards for the same work, according to The Athletic.
"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," The Athletic reported.
On-air personalities that accepted awards for the fake associate producers include Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso and reporters Shelley Smith and Gene Wojciechowski.
The duplicate award winners declined to comment or could not be reached by The Athletic. In a statement, ESPN confirmed it 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."
"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.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.