ESPN won seven Sports Emmy Awards, presented for the 31st year by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences last night in New York. ESPN’s commitment to innovation was recognized through honors for three of the network’s more creative series (Pardon the Interruption, E:60 and SportsNation), ESPN.com content, and the ground-breaking College GameDay weekly football road show.
E:60 won its first two Sports Emmys, in the Long Feature category for “Catfish Hunters,” a piece by Wright Thompson about fishing for catfish with bare hands, and in the Journalism category for “Wanted: Fugitive,” a Jeremy Schaap report about a former Binghamton University basketball player who fled to Serbia to avoid criminal charges in the U.S. It was the ninth consecutive year ESPN received a Sports Emmy in one of the two categories for Features and the ninth time the company was honored for Journalism.
Two other shows also won their first Sports Emmy: Pardon the Interruption in the category Studio Show Daily; and SportsNation, which debuted in July 2009, in the category Graphic Design.
College GameDay won the Studio Show Weekly Sports Emmy for the second time in three years, and the show’s Kirk Herbstreit was named the best Studio Show Analyst with the first Sports Emmy in his 15-year ESPN career.
ESPN.com was honored in the New Approaches – Sports Programming category for the feature “Super Bowl MVPs.” ESPN has been honored with at least one award in each of the years online entries have been considered (since 2006).
ESPN has now won 135 Sports Emmy Awards in 23 years of eligibility.
ESPN’s Sports Emmy Awards (all are ESPN, except as noted):
Studio Show/Weekly College GameDay
Studio Show/Daily Pardon the Interruption
Journalism E:60 – Wanted: Fugitive (ESPN2)
Long Feature E:60 – Catfish Hunters (ESPN2)
New Approaches –
Sports Programming Super Bowl MVPs (ESPN.com)
Studio Analyst Kirk Herbstreit
Graphic Design SportsNation (ESPN2)
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