An
ESPY 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,
Emmy, and
Academy Award, 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.