Colgate Country Showdown

The Country Showdown is an annual talent contest to find undiscovered country music singers across the United States. As many as 100,000 acts compete in the Country Showdown annually, which is considered to be the largest country music talent competition in the United States.

The annual event was first started in 1982 and created by Paul Stanley of PS Promotions. At the time Wrangler sponsored the event. Wrangler served as sponsor from 1982 - 1986. After 1986 the Showdown switched sponsors to True Value. Various companies co-sponsored the event, including GMC, Dodge, Coca-Cola, and Jimmy Dean. True Value was active in the event sponsorship for 14 years, until in 2000, when Colgate became the event sponsor until 2011.

In 2011 showdown sponsorship shifted again to Texaco and is currently in its first year as the Texaco Country Showdown

As of 2014, the contest no longer carries a title sponsor.

The Country Showdown is structured as a four-round, single-elimination tournament, with each round representing a larger geographic area than the one before it.

The opening round is the local round; it is typically sponsored by a local country radio station (approximately 450 stations hold local contests for the Country Showdown as of the early 2010s) in the spring. The winners of the local contests then move onto the state championships, whose winners in turn advance to one of five regional finals (Southwest, Southeast, Midwest, Northeast and West). The winners of each regional final advance to the national final, held at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, in January of each year. The National Final is taped in front of a live audience and later televised as a 1-hour-long program, and is broadcast on syndication in March and April. The act which is crowned victorious wins a grand prize of $100,000, along with the title of "Best New Act in Country Music", and a chance at notability which would help them to further their musical career.

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