BTS Once Won This 4 Years Running: Now They're Back in the Best Group Race

BTS, BLACKPINK, CORTIS, and KATSEYE are all in the running for Best Group at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, after MTV added the category to its nominee roster on September 18 (local time). For BTS, the addition brings their total nomination count at this year's show to three, having already been recognized in Song of the Year and Best K-Pop.

The Best Group nod carries particular weight for BTS: the group won that category four consecutive years from 2019 through 2022, the longest streak any act has put together in the award's history. Returning to it as a nominee, rather than a defending champion, is the kind of circumstance that either closes a chapter or reopens one.

Who's nominated where

CORTIS picked up three nominations in total: Best New Artist, Best K-Pop, and now Best Group. KATSEYE leads the newly added names with four nominations, appearing in Best Choreography, Best K-Pop, Best Group, and Best Song of Summer.

The Best Song of Summer category also added two K-pop-adjacent entries. KATSEYE's HOOTIE FRUTTI earned a spot, and Jennie of BLACKPINK landed a nomination for DRACULA, her collaboration with Australian artist Tame Impala. That collab nomination gives Jennie a separate foothold in the race independent of BLACKPINK's group nomination.

The 2026 MTV VMAs are scheduled for September 27 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. With BTS, BLACKPINK, CORTIS, and KATSEYE all in Best Group, the category is shaping up as a four-way K-pop contest, which is either a sign of how thoroughly the genre has embedded itself in the American awards circuit or a category that needs a wider net. Probably both.