Image: The Shark Group / CC BY-SA 4.0
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The Early Wins (2012-2013)
Shark Tank started picking up award recognition pretty quickly. In 2012 it earned a Critics' Choice nomination for Best Reality Series and got nods from the Producers Guild of America and the Primetime Creative Arts Emmys. By 2013 it won the Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming, which was the first big signal that the show was being taken seriously beyond just ratings.
The Peak Years (2014-2018)
This is when the awards really started piling up. Shark Tank won Best Reality Series at the Critics' Choice Awards in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. That's five years in a row. It also won Outstanding Structured Reality Program at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmys in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. For a stretch there, the show was basically untouchable in its category.
The Sharks Get Recognized
It wasn't just the show winning awards. The sharks themselves started getting nominations. Barbara Corcoran, Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John, and Kevin O'Leary were nominated for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program starting in 2020. Director Ken Fuchs also picked up multiple nominations at the Directors Guild Awards and the Creative Arts Emmys for his work on the show.
Casting Awards
The casting team has gotten recognition too. Mindy Zemrak and Jen Rosen were nominated for Outstanding Casting for a Reality Program at the 2019 Creative Arts Emmys, and that nomination came back in 2021 with Erica Brooks Hochberg joining the team. Finding the right entrepreneurs to pitch on the show is a bigger deal than people realize, and the Emmys have noticed.
Still Going
Shark Tank continues to show up at the Emmys and other award shows year after year. For a show that's been on since 2009, that kind of consistency is pretty rare in reality TV.