Disney may be using the 2025 CMA Awards as a warm-up for 2027.

The company has in recent years been snatching up rights to some of TV’s best-known live events, and what it does Wednesday evening during a country-music awards telecast from Nashville could take on even greater importance in the early part of 2027, when, over the course of eight weeks, Disney’s TV and streaming properties will feature the College Football Playoffs, the Oscars, the Grammys and Super Bowl LXI — the first time ABC will show the Big Game since 2006.

The impetus for building a new array of live events comes in part from advertisers, says John Campbell, senior vice president of entertainment and streaming solutions at Disney Advertising. “The demand for live from our partners is — we’ve never seen demand like t

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