After Lady Gaga won the Best Music Direction Sports Emmy for her pre-Super Bowl performance of “Hold My Hand,” most of the media coverage around the honor (including Gold Derby‘s) focused on one major implication.
Gaga is just a Tony Award away from achieving EGOT status.
As iconically coined by Miami Vice star Philip Michael Thomas and later popularized by fictional EGOT aspiree Tracy Jordan of 30 Rock, the acronymic honor is bestowed upon anyone who wins an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. And since Gaga already has a pile of Grammys (14) and an Oscar for cowriting “Shallow” from A Star Is Born, the Sports Emmy would make her just one trophy shy of joining the likes of Elton John, Audrey Hepburn, and Rita Moreno.
As an accomplished multihyphenate artist and established pop icon, Gaga would fit easily among the ranks of previous EGOT winners, but the honor’s unofficial-ness has always left some gray areas about its ins and outs. And in the case of Gaga, there is one question that has yet to be definitively answered.
Does a Sports Emmy count?
Now, before you rage in the comment section or call in the SWAT team, some context.
First and foremost, this is a silly question, even sillier than the very concept of the EGOT (which, before Thomas came along, was widely known as the “grand slam of show business”). Winning even one of these prestigious awards is a near statistical impossibility and an unbelievable achievement that likely required a lifetime of focused passion.
And also, a Sports Emmy statue has the same design as its Primetime cousin, just like the Daytime and News & Documentary Emmys, so there’s that.
But consider this: The EGOT Wikipedia entry cordons off those who have received non-competitive awards, sitting the honorary winners at an asterisk-shaped kids table. That ignominious list features six individuals: Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, James Earl Jones, Harry Belafonte, Quincy Jones, and producer Frank Marshall.
And going back to the beginning of the EGOT’s time in the wider pop-culture lexicon, Whoopi Goldberg herself had to defend the legitimacy of her Daytime Emmy to Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock. “It still counts,” she said.
With that in mind, it seems fairly safe to say that there are lingering questions in the larger culture around EGOT eligibility that are worth discussing.
Thomas, the progenitor of the concept, has made his feelings on the issue clear: He wants nothing to do with it. Back in 2019, Thrillist caught up with the actor at an event for Thomas’ English Muffins (truly) and asked specifically about whether a Daytime Emmy counted. “I have no jurisdiction over any of that,” he said, before being pushed to weigh in and admitting he would count a Daytime victory. “It’s still an Emmy.”
So if the term’s originator and Whoopi Goldberg make the case for Daytime Emmy inclusion, what about Sports?
There’s less evidence here probably because there haven’t been that many reasons to debate the award’s validity. Gaga is the first EGOT hopeful to come within one competitive trophy of the status with a Sports Emmy for her E. There’s a carve-out for “competitive” in that statement because Frank Marshall has an EGOT with an honorary Oscar and a competitive Sports Emmy.
Also, he produced Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Where does that leave the debate? The little factual evidence that exists supports the inclusion of Daytime, Sports, and News & Docs Emmys as eligible for EGOT status. The trophies are the same, they’re all called Emmys, and they aren’t easy to win.
And to those who still maintain that only competitive Primetime Emmys count? Maybe they just EGOTTA get a life.
