PWInsider - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

WWE'S NEW HEAD OF MEDIA & PRODUCTION BARRED FROM WINNING EMMY AWARDS, EXITED ESPN DUE TO CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING FALSELY WON EMMYS FOR ESPN TALENT

WWE's new Head of Media & Production, Lee Fitting has become embroiled in a controversy surrounding former employer ESPN falsely acquiring Emmy Awards for on-air talents who were not eligible to receive awards.

The Atlantic reported earlier today that ESPN made up fake names for Emmy Awards consideration when submitting ESPN properties for consideration.  This was done in order to obtain statuettes for on-air talent, who were not eligible to win them under rules set up by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS).   ESPN, if they won the award, would then re-engrave the statues in the talents' names.  The Network has now returned the awards in question back to NATAS.

The New York Post reported that the situation led to Fitting being barred from being eligible for Emmys and later played a factor in his ESPN exit.

ESPN issued the following statement to The New York Post:

“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,” ESPN said in a statement to The Post.  “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.”

Fitting was announced on 1/9 as the replacement for Kevin Dunn, who retired from the company after over three decades at the helm of WWE's production side, as first broken here at PWInsider.com.

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!

• Tweet