Who will win the 49th Annual Country Music Association Awards? The awards will be handed out during a music-filled ceremony on Nov. 4 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and broadcast live on ABC. Predict the winners in the 11 categories for a chance to be featured on our leaderboard and win $100 if you qualify according to our contest rules. Get started below by predicting who will win Entertainer of the Year.
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The CMA Awards nominees and winners are determined by the more than 7,400 industry professionals who are members of the Country Music Assn. Last year they awarded the Entertainer of the Year prize to Luke Bryan for the first time. He defends his title this year against some especially formidable opponents: Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney, who are both four-time champs (and 10-time nomines); three-time also-ran Miranda Lambert; and first-timer Eric Church.
Church and Little Big Town lead this year’s overall nominations with five bids each while Chesney and Lambert earned four apiece. Coming in at three nominations are Kacey Musgraves and a trio of new talent — Sam Hunt, Maddie and Tae and Chris Stapleton. (CLICK HERE to see the complete list of nominations.)
In addition to the top prize, Church is up for Male Vocalist, both Single (“Talladega“) and Song (“Like a Wrecking Ball“) of the Year and Musical Event for duetting with Keith Urban on “Raise ‘Em Up.”
Three-time Vocal Group champ Little Big Town earned its 10th bid in that category as well as Album of the Year (“Pain Killer“), Single and Video of the Year (“Girl Crush“) and Musical Event for crooning “Smokin’ and Drinkin’” with Lambert.
Lambert and her soon-to-be ex Blake Shelton are both looking for their sixth straight wins as Female and Male Vocalist respectively. Among those that they face are several newcomers.
For the first time in CMA history, four of the five nominees for New Artist of the Year — Kelsea Ballerini, Sam Hunt, Maddie and Tae, and Chris Stapleton — are in contention in other categories as well. Ballerini is up for Female Vocalist while Maddie and Tae vie for Vocal Duo and Video (“Girl in a Country Song“). Hunt’s break-out hit “Take Your Time” is nominated for both Single and Song of the Year. And Stapleton contends for Male Vocalist while his chart-topping disc “Traveller” is in the running for Album of the Year.
For the eighth year running, Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood are pairing up to host this music-filled awardsfest.
RELATED: Complete list of CMA Awards nominations
Make your own CMA picks now to the right or at the bottom of this post, and you could win a $100 Amazon gift card as well as a place of honor on our leaderboard and a starring role in next year’s Top 24 Users (the two dozen folks who do the best predicting this year’s CMA winners).
Last year, our Editors (Gold Derby’s in-house team of writers and prognosticators), Top 24 Users and all Gold Derby Users tied with an accuracy rate of 66.67% when it came to predicting the CMA winners. (Click on any of these groups to see what they got right and wrong last year.)
Which group will be victorious this year? User Dehlavi got the top score predicting the CMAs last year with a whopping 89% accuracy rate. As some of our Users turn out to be our smartest prognosticators, it’s important that you give us your predictions. Your picks influence our Users racetrack odds, which also factor into our official combined odds.
