In January, ESPN apologized after news broke that the network was using fake names in Emmy Award categories where employees were not eligible to win. Kirk Herbstreit was among the ESPN personalities to wrongfully receive Emmy Awards, although he was not aware of the scam by the people involved at ESPN.
Herbstreit recently joined the Pat McAfee Show for a segment and spoke about what happened with the Emmy Award scandal.
“When College GameDay or any of these shows win an Emmy, when the show does, I was naive to the whole thing. I thought the people on the set would get an Emmy,” Kirk Herbstreit explained. “So all these years I didn’t know what was going on. I just thought, ‘Hey, this finally came. Where’s this been?’ Stuck it on the mantle and moved on.”
Later on, Herbstreit learned that he wasn’t supposed to have received the Emmy Awards. He was informed that the organization that gives out the awards needed to come get his.
There was only one problem, though. Herbstreit wasn’t home.
“Two years ago they said, ‘That was not supposed to go to you guys on the set, so we’ve got to take them all back.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I’m not in my house in Nashville. You’re going to have to go get them,’” Herbstreit recalled. “And they were like ‘Okay. No problem.’ They went down and got them and took 8 of my 13 of them out of the house.”
The good news for Kirk Herbstreit and everyone else at ESPN College GameDay is that they are now allowed to win Emmy Awards. GameDay won one again this year, and Herbstreit received his own.
“I think after that they changed the rule, and now if GameDay wins one, now I think guys like me and you and Des and Rece and coach, we legally get one now,” Herbstreit told Pat McAfee. “I think technically it’s our ninth, but it’s our first one we can actually have in our house.”
Kirk Herbstreit opens up on relationship with Lee Corso
Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso are synonymous with College GameDay and their relationship came full circle as of late.
With Herbstreit as the mainstay on ESPN’s pregame show and Corso approaching his 80s, it’s vastly different from when it started. But the relationship always remained strong and that’ll continue into 2024.
Herbstreit mentioned how Corso became a father figure in their friendship early on and it’s something he cherished to this day.
“It’s changed a lot,” Herbstreit said on The Mental Game. “From that very first audition where I sat next to him and I was nervous and he tried to calm me down and they hired me and I show up that first season and he treated me as an equal. You know, I never forget how comfortable, he basically put his arm around me and made me feel like it was just me and Chris and him. And he was an analyst and I’m an analyst and we’re going to talk about these games. The show was only an hour back then, but just how he made me feel (comfortable).”
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