The four top individual Sports Emmy Awards, which were announced Monday, all went to on-air professionals whose work includes a large portion of football coverage -- again showing how TV's most popular sport makes commercial and critical stars of those who cover it.
Three of the major individual recipients have been in that category for years, and one rookie winner finally earned hardware to verify his status as one of the best in the business.
Bob Costas of NBC earned his 19th Sports Emmy, recognizing his work as Outstanding Sports Personality-Studio Host for work on "Football Night in America" and horse racing while Jim Nantz of CBS was named Outstanding Sports Personality-Play-by-Play for his work covering the NFL and golf. It was the second consecutive win in that category for Nantz.
Analysts Chris Collinsworth and Kirk Herbstreit completed the quartet with honors as Outstanding Sports Personality-Sports Event Analyst and Outstanding Sports Personality-Studio Analyst, respectively. For Collinsworth, it was his ninth Sports Emmy overall (two as event analyst and seven as studio analyst) while it was the first Sport Emmy for he likable and well-prepared Herbstreit.
John Madden, with a record 16 Sports Emmys for game analysis, was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the event in New York City.
Among networks, HBO earned nine Sports Emmys, followed by CBS and ESPN with seven each. MLB Network earned four.
ESPN's honorees included: "College GameDay," selected as Outstanding Studio Show-Weekly, it's second such honor in the past three years; and "Pardon the Interruption," which earned its first Sports Emmy as Outstanding Sports Show-Daily.
Click here for a complete list of winners.