ESPN: The Worldwide Leader in Shadiness
For decades, ESPN was known as the “Worldwide Leader in Sports.” Nowadays it seems like you are lucky to get 15 minutes of actual sports in a 60-minute window.
Over the years it seems like ESPN has enjoyed looking down upon anyone that doesn’t work for them. It seems like they were more focused on lecturing everyone when it comes to fairness and integrity instead of talking about sports. And people wonder why their ratings have plummeted over the years.
The most surprising thing ESPN has done over the last five years is hire Pat McAfee. I guess they couldn’t stand their declining ratings anymore, so they were willing to make a splash hire, the feelings of some of the people within their company be damned.
I’m not here to embarrass ESPN, as they do that well enough themselves. However, I am here to speak my mind on the investigation that caught fire last week.
In case you’ve missed it, ESPN returned dozens of Emmys and “disciplined” employees after an investigation found that the sports network had submitted fake names to the awards organization in a bid to secure trophies for on-air personalities who had been ineligible to receive them.
The apparent fraud stretched back to 1997, ESPN said in a statement, acknowledging that members of its team “were clearly wrong” for concocting the scheme.
In order to save you some time, here’s the condensed version of what transpired. For years, ESPN would submit fake names to the Emmys, and some of the submissions actually won the award. After receiving the statuettes, ESPN would take those awards and have them reengraved to put one of the names of the actual on-air talents.
After that, they would send the Emmy to that person and say, “Congratulations, you won an Emmy.”
Here’s how this works. ESPN would submit names for both on-air talent and people behind the camera. But the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), which gives out the awards, didn’t let the same people qualify for both. So, ESPN would enter fabricated names of “associate producers” who just so happen to have the same initials as the on-air talent. Names like Kirk Henry (Kirk Herbstreit), Lee Clark (Lee Corso), and Dirk Howard (Desmond Howard) appeared on credit lists as associate producers.
ESPN finally admitted to this fraud after being asked to verify the names and while there is no evidence of on-air talent knowing what was going on, this is still absolutely pathetic by the sports media megacompany.
Instead of being worried about fake Emmys, why not put that effort into the shows on your network? Setting up a subpar day-time show in a high-rise studio on the river doesn’t make your show any more legitimate. You can put as many clueless babbling idiots in front of a gorgeous backdrop as you want. At the end of the day, we still have to listen to the same idiotic and nonsensical takes on the same three topics every day of the week. The only difference is, that instead of some run-down studio, the audience can enjoy a good view in the background.
Where is the Integrity?
For a company that claims it prides itself on integrity, this investigation and its findings are downright comical.
This isn’t the first or last shady thing that ESPN has been tied in with, not by a mile. Guess who helped destroy college football as we once knew it? Who had a major hand in breaking up the Big 12? Have you forgotten about former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby sending a cease-and-desist letter to ESPN after it was doing everything it could to dissolve his conference?
Even Bowlsby knew that ESPN was shady.
I just hope the day comes when ESPN gets a taste of their own medicine, and if karma is real, their time will come sooner or later.
The “Worldwide Leader in Sports?” More like the “Worldwide Leader in Shadiness.”
