Country star Reba McEntire will host the ACM Awards in Frisco

The 59th Academy of Country Music Awards will be streamed live at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco in May.

Country music legend Reba McEntire performed before friends, officials and media gathered for the opening of her new restaurant, Reba’s Place, in downtown Atoka, Oklahoma in 2023.(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

For its second year in Frisco, the Academy of Country Music Awards is calling in a veteran.

On Thursday morning, country music’s oldest awards show announced Reba McEntire will host the 59th ACMs on May 16 at the Ford Center at the Star. It will be McEntire’s 17th time hosting, the most of any artist.

“I am tickled to pieces to get to host,” McEntire said in a statement. “What an honor to have been part of the past, present and now the future of the Academy of Country Music.”

The country superstar’s presence at the awards extends far beyond serving as master of ceremonies. McEntire’s trophy cabinet includes 16 ACM awards for her work as the Queen of Country. She has been nominated nine times for ACM entertainer of the year, an honor she won in 1994. She also holds the distinction of being the most nominated female artist of the year at the awards.

“No one has a deeper and richer history with the Academy than Reba,” said ACM CEO Damon Whiteside in a statement of his own.

McEntire will also perform and debut new music during the show.

Viewers can stream this year’s awards live on Prime Video at 7 p.m. More than 7.7 million tuned in on the platform last year. A limited number of tickets to this year’s ACM Awards are also available for purchase on SeatGeek.

This year marks the second time the ACMs will take place at the Dallas Cowboys’ world headquarters. Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks hosted last year, riffing off each other at the 12,000-seat Ford Center.

Generations of country music royalty had been on the red carpet for about two hours when Parton and Brooks arrived, setting off cheers. It was Parton’s second consecutive year hosting the ACMs. For Brooks, it was an all-new experience.

The show was replete with nods to the Texas setting — and, more specifically, the Cowboys. Keith Urban opened with “Texas Time” before Dak Prescott gave his own introduction, telling the crowd, “Welcome to our house.”

Whiteside said in a press conference last month the venue was a surprising fit.

“Frisco really turned out to be a great home for us last year. It was something very unexpected for us,” he told reporters in a press conference last month. “But it really turned out to be fantastic.”

The awards, touted as “country music’s party of the year,” began in 1966 and debuted on television six years later. They left Southern California in 2003 for Las Vegas. They have also taken place in Nashville.

Luke Combs, Megan Moroney and Morgan Wallen are the leading nominees for this year’s awards. Combs saw eight nominations earlier this month including entertainer of the year and male artist of the year.