ESPN used fake names to secure more than 30 Emmys for prominent on-air staffers on College GameDay who were not eligible to win them, according to a report Thursday by The Athletic.

Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Desmond Howard, Chris Fowler, Samantha Ponder, Gene Wojciechowski and Shelley Smith are among those who “won” the awards over a period of several years in the last decade-plus. ESPN submitted fake names with the same initials as on-air talent — including “Kirk Henry” for Herbstreit and “Lee Clark” for Corso — and then had the statuettes re-engraved to reflect the correct names.

College GameDay won eight Emmys for outstanding weekly studio show from 2008-18, but on-air personalities were not allowed by National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences rules to be included in the credit list in that category. Individual on-air staffers could win in categories for hosting or for individual feature reporting, but were prohibited from “double-dipping” by winning an award both for the show and for their work on the show (producers typically won the show awards).

According to The Athletic’s report, there’s no proof that individual on-air personalities were aware of the awards scheme. Emmy eligibility rules were changed in 2023 to allow individual personalities to win awards along with the show’s producers. Smith — whose ESPN contract expired in July — confirmed she was forced to return two Emmys she believed she had received for her College GameDay work. Long-time College GameDay coordinating producer Lee Fitting was fired by ESPN last summer, and no reason was given as to why he was terminated (it’s not confirmed he was let go over the Emmy scheme, however).

ESPN released the following statement:

“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.

“We brought in outside counsel to conduct a full and thorough investigation and individuals found to be responsible were disciplined by ESPN.”

NATAS, which discovered the scheme, released the following statement from president and CEO Adam Sharp:

“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.”

You can read the full report by The Athletic HERE.