Kirk Herbstreit recently opened up about his lack of awareness surrounding the notorious ESPN Emmys scandal, which came to light in January.
The scandal involved ESPN receiving 30 Emmys over 13 years for “College GameDay” hosts and other on-air talent who were actually ineligible for the awards. According to an investigation by The Athletic, ESPN used fictitious names in Emmy submissions and later re-engraved the awards to distribute to its on-air personalities.
Speaking on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Herbstreit, a longtime analyst on “College GameDay,” shared that he had eight of his thirteen Emmy awards removed from his Nashville home while he was away. “I had eight [Emmys] taken out of my house,” Herbstreit recounted. “I was naive to the whole thing. I thought obviously the people on the set would get an Emmy. So all of these years, I didn’t know what was going on. I was not privy to that information.”
Herbstreit explained that it was only in the last couple of years that he was told the awards were not supposed to go to the on-set team. “Then the last year or two they said ‘that was not supposed to go to you guys on the set,’ so we gotta take them all back. I was like, ‘I’m not at my house in Nashville,’ and they were like, ‘OK, no problem.’ They went down and got them and took right of my 13 out of the house.”
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Following this debacle, a new rule was established in 2023 by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) allowing hosts, analysts, and reporters on “College GameDay” to receive an individual Emmy if the show wins. This rule change aimed to rectify the previous restriction which prevented on-air talent from being credited in that category to avoid “double-dipping,” as they could also win individual awards.
Herbstreit humorously noted the change, saying, “I think after that they changed the rule and now if ‘GameDay’ wins one — now I think guys like you, all of the schleps, guys like me and you, Des, Rece [Davis] and coach [Nick Saban] legally get one.”
The scandal had led ESPN to discipline staff members involved in the erroneous Emmy submissions.
Notably, Herbstreit’s false submission name used during the scheme was “Kirk Henry.” Despite the scandal, the show continued to include prominent figures like Pat McAfee, who joined as a weekly analyst in September 2022, and Nick Saban, who started in 2024.
