Garth Brooks‘ CMA Entertainer of the Year win should be a surprise to no one in the country music industry. The 55-year-old simply out-hustled his younger competition.
Each of the five EOTY nominees was well-qualified, so it’s easy to imagine a scenario where the 7,200 voters were split into five equal parts to begin a weeks-long voting season.
That’s 1,440 votes each. From there, how many voter does a nominee need to sway to win this award? 100? 200? 500?If Brooks wasn’t the favorite, he was at least a favorite on the face of the six million concert tickets he’s sold over the last three years. Make no mistake: Brooks is worthy of the award based solely on his musical contributions, but it’s his marketing and publicity acumen that earned him the honor for a second straight year.
Last week nearly two dozen radio stations and media outlets took part in CMA radio row, a junket that has artists going booth to booth for one-on-one interviews. Brooks and Bryan were the only Entertainer of the Year nominees there.
Three weeks before that, Brooks played a pop-up show at the legendary Bluebird Cafe, inviting Nashville and national media in the area to see him share stories of hit songs like “The Dance,” “The River” and “The Thunder Rolls” with his favorite writers. Everyone left feeling like they’d just witnessed something truly extraordinary. Final ballots for CMA voting were due soon after.
Brooks brought dozens, if not hundreds of his radio and media friends (including Taste of Country) to Atlanta to watch him open Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The sound at the new football stadium was terrible, but the entertainment was great, and the high-roller spread left everyone feeling pretty good about what they experienced.
He did something similar in October 2016, flying radio and media to Dallas for a junket on the 50-yard-line of the Cowboys’ football stadium.Think back on the last 10 years — how many holiday seasons have gone by…
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