Lee Fitting's somewhat mysterious firing from ESPN in August now has a little more context following Thursday's report that the network was working on a long-term plan to win Emmys for on-air talent who were ineligible for the awards. It might have been.
Plans to rename the Emmy statuette were a “factor” in Fitting's firing. This was reported by the paper's reporter Andrew Marchand. Thursday.
Fitting, who was named WWE's head of media and production on Tuesday, was disqualified from competing in future Emmy Awards as part of ESPN's punishment. According to The Athletic.
The former ESPN executive oversaw programming such as “Monday Night Football” and “College GameDay” before the network parted ways with him.
The bombshell report revealed that ESPN made up fake names for the Emmy Awards in order to win statuettes for on-air talent who were ineligible under rules set by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS).
The network submitted a pseudonym with initials similar to the on-air talent, listed him as an associate producer, and re-engraved the statuette before giving it to the talent.
NATAS eventually learned of the practice, and as part of ESPN's punishment, the network returned the trophy and received a one-year suspension from the Emmy Awards as a senior leader.
ESPN executive Craig Lazarus was also specifically named as a future Emmy nominee, along with Fitting.
“It was clear that some members of our team had submitted certain names in Emmy categories that may date back to 1997 and were not eligible for recognition or statuettes. “This was a misguided attempt to recognize an on-air individual who was an important member of our production team,” ESPN said in a statement to the Post.
“Once the current leadership was made aware of this, we apologized to NATAS for the breach of guidelines and are working closely with NATAS to completely review the submission process to ensure this does not happen again.” Did.”
