ESPY Award

ESPY Award
Awarded for Excellence in sports performance and achievements
Presented by ESPN
Country United States
First awarded 1993
Official website http://espn.go.com/espy2010/

An ESPY Award (short for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award) is an accolade presented by the American cable television network ESPN to recognize individual and team athletic achievement and other sports-related performance during the calendar year preceding a given annual ceremony. The first ESPYs were awarded in 1993. Because of the ceremony's rescheduling prior to the 2002 iteration thereof, awards presented in 2002 were for achievement and performances during the seventeen-plus months previous. As the similarly-styled Grammy (for music), Emmy (for television), and Academy Award (for film), the ESPYs are hosted by a contemporary celebrity; the style, though, is more relaxed, light, and self-referential than that of many other awards shows, with comedic sketches usually included. The host for the 2011 ESPYS is Seth Meyers and the head writer is Jonathan Drubner.

From their inception to 2004, ESPY Award winners were chosen only through voting by fans. Since 2004, sportswriters, broadcasters, sports executives, and sportspersons, collectively experts; or ESPN personalities also vote. Award winners have been selected thereafter exclusively through online fan balloting conducted from amongst candidates selected by the ESPY Select Nominating Committee.

Contents

Charitable role

A portion of the proceeds from sales of tickets to the event devolves on the V Foundation, a charity established by collegiate basketball coach and television commentator Jim Valvano to promote cancer research. Valvano announced the creation of the charitable foundation during his acceptance of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award during the inaugural ESPY telecast on March 3, 1993, fifty-five days before Valvano's death from metastatic adenocarcinoma.

Ceremonies

Timing

Between 1993 and 2001, the ceremony was held each year in either February or March and was broadcast recorded on ESPN.

Since 2002, the ceremony has been conducted on the Wednesday in July following the Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game; as none of the major North American professional leagues have games scheduled for that day—the National Basketball Association, National Football League, and National Hockey League are not in-season, and MLB does not contest games on the day following its all-star game—major sports figures are available to attend. The show is aired on the subsequent Sunday four days later, although the results are announced on ESPN.com and thereafter across media outlets immediately after taping is complete. For the first time since 2003 the ESPY Awards were televised live on ESPN, July 14, 2010.[1]

Location

The first seven editions of the ESPYs were held in New York City—in 1993 and 1994 at Madison Square Garden and from 1995 through 1999, at Radio City Music Hall. The awards relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada, for two years beginning in 2000, and ultimately settled at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. In 2006, it was announced that the awards would move in 2008 to the Nokia Theatre, to be situated as the West Coast headquarters of ESPN at LA Live, adjacent to the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

Hosts

The ceremonies have been hosted variously by comedians, television and film actors, and sportspeople. American film actor Samuel L. Jackson is the only individual to have hosted four times (in 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2009); American comedian Dennis Miller, American film actor and singer Jamie Foxx and actor and comedian Seth Meyers are the only others to have hosted the awards ceremonies more than once.

Year-by-year

Date Iteration Venue Host
July 13, 2011 19th Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles American actor and comedian Seth Meyers
July 14, 2010 18th
July 19, 2009 17th American actor Samuel L. Jackson
July 20, 2008 16th American pop singer Justin Timberlake
July 15, 2007 15th Kodak Theatre, Los Angeles American basketball player LeBron James & American comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel
July 16, 2006 14th American road cyclist Lance Armstrong
July 17, 2005 13th Canadian-American actor Matthew Perry
July 18, 2004 12th American actor and singer Jamie Foxx
July 16, 2003 11th
July 10, 2002 10th American actor Samuel L. Jackson
February 12, 2001 9th MGM Grand
February 14, 2000 8th American actor Jimmy Smits
February 15, 1999 7th Radio City Music Hall, New York American actor Samuel L. Jackson
February 9, 1998 6th Canadian actor and comedian Norm Macdonald
February 10, 1997 5th American actor and comedian Jeff Foxworthy
February 12, 1996 4th American actor and comedian Tony Danza
February 13, 1995 3rd American actor and comedian John Goodman
February 14, 1994 2nd Madison Square Garden, New York American comedian Dennis Miller
March 4, 1993 1st

Awards

American professional golfer Tiger Woods is the most-honored ESPY recipient, having received 21 awards.

Extant

Cross-cutter categories

Cross-cutter awards are those the eligibility for which is not confined to those sportspersons participating in, or those events occurring in, any single or specific sport.

Individual categories

Individual awards are those for which eligibility is limited to those partaking of a single individual or team sport or specific sport category.

Sponsored awards are those otherwise constituted as cross-cutter awards the titles and eligibility criteria of which reflect corporate sponsorship.

Discontinued, irregular, or superseded

Cross-cutter categories

Cross-cutter awards are those the eligibility for which is not confined to those sportspersons participating in, or those events occurring in, any single or specific sport.

Individual categories

Individual awards are those for which eligibility is limited to those partaking of a single individual or team sport or specific sport category.

Sponsored awards are those otherwise constituted as cross-cutter awards the titles and eligibility criteria of which reflect corporate sponsorship.

Criticism

I love John Walsh, and I have a fond feeling for ESPN. But I find the ESPY Awards objectionable. We already have awards. The World Series is an award. An MVP is an award. We don't need more awards. They make up this crap so they can fill time with it - the worst.
—Bill Wolff (ESPN producer) in the book Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the Secret World of ESPN (pg. 287)
Of all the award shows, the ESPYs have got to be the dumbest award show there is. First of all, award shows in general are sort of silly and ridiculous and we know they're just for creating publicity, but at least it makes some sort of sense within that framework to have an awards show for movies, or television, because there is no way with those to know which is the best. But when we're talking about sports - they actually play the game. We don't have to give an award to the best team. We know who the best team is - they've already won! That's the great thing about sports, there's a built-in objective mechanism by which we can ascertain who the winners are. But no, you have to win a second time in a tuxedo, and a spokesmodel has to hand you a trophy; that's what's important.
—Bill Maher (ESPYs presenter) in the book Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the Secret World of ESPN (pg. 322-323)

See also

References

  1. ^ http://espys.espneventmedia.com
  2. ^ a b c d e The Best Female and Best Male College Basketball and Best College Football Player ESPY Awards, awarded betwixt 1993 and 2001, inclusive, were absorbed in 2002 by the Best Female and Best Male College Athlete ESPY Awards.
  3. ^ a b c Between 2002 and 2004, inclusive, a single award for best sportsperson with a disability was presented; in 2005, the award was bifurcated by gender and reconstituted as the Best Female and Best Male Athlete with a Disability ESPY Awards.
  4. ^ In 2001, the Outstanding Team ESPY Award was bifurcated and two new awards—styled as the Pro Team of the Year ESPY Award and College Team of the Year ESPY Award—were presented; the two were combined once more in 2002.
  5. ^ a b c In 2002 and 2003, a single award, styled in the former year as the Best Action Athlete of the Year ESPY Award, for best action sportsperson was presented; in 2004, the award was bifurcated by gender and reconstituted as the Best Male and Best Female Action Sports Athlete ESPY Awards.
  6. ^ a b Between 1993 and 2006, inclusive, the award for best fighter, styled as the Best Boxer ESPY Award, was limited only to boxers; the Best Fighter ESPY Award absorbed the former in 2007.
  7. ^ a b c Between 1993 and 2004 inclusive, and again since 2009, the award for best professional golfer has been bifurcated by gender.
  8. ^ a b c Between 1993 and 2006 inclusive, with the exception of 2005, separate ESPYs for the best male and female track athletes were presented. These were combined into a single award in 2007.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j ESPN "ESPY Awards past winners". espn.go.com. http://espn.go.com/espy2005/s/pastwinners.html ESPN. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j ESPN "Best of the ESPYs - Best of the Best, Winners Archive". espn.go.com. http://espn.go.com/espy2008/postshow/index.html#/bestof/ ESPN. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  11. ^ a b "ESPYs Moments: A Classic Look Back". ESPN.com. July 13, 2011. http://espn.go.com/espys/#!/moments/video=6768243/. Retrieved September 23, 2011. 
  12. ^ a b c Both males and females were eligible for the 2000 and 2001 iterations of the award, which was bifurcated by gender and reconstituted as the Best Female and Best Male Soccer Player ESPY Awards in 2002; the awards were merged into a single award in 2005 and ended a year later.
  13. ^ Amongst those eligible for the Best Outdoor Sportsman ESPY Award were bass sport fishermen; such sportspersons are eligible for the Best Angler ESPY Award, which partially replaced the former award and was first presented in 2006.

External links