According to an exposè in The Athletic, over nearly three decades ESPN has run a scheme to get their on-air personalities and show hosts multiple Emmys for the same show in the same year, a violation of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) rules.

They have had to return a reported 37 Emmy awards from as far back as 1997.

Here's what ESPN was doing that cost them their Emmys.

An individual is not allowed to be entered in multiple categories for the same show in a single year. So ESPN would make up names for other awards, for production or other categories, but give those trophies to their on-air hosts.

A real example is the name of producers "Kirk Henry" and "Lee Clark" for their work on Gameday.

Although, it should have been a giveaway to the Emmys folks when this Lee Clark guy showed up like this to accept the award:

The fake people "win" the award, and then ESPN would give the trophies to the REAL people, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso, both hosts of College Gameday.

They'd literally just replace the nameplates on the statues to give to their hosts!

Now, I do not mean to pick on those two alone! This was a BIG issue with ESPN!

This was repeated as a scheme to rack up wins for their on-air personalities AT LEAST 37 different times!

It took them nearly THREE DECADES to get caught!

You've gotta wonder, if ESPN got caught, how many more shows are doing the same thing?

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