MAMA Awards 2023 early predictions: NewJeans and SEVENTEEN face off for AOTY daesang

With nearly four months to go for MAMA Awards 2023, one of the most coveted K-pop music shows, early predictions for the dasaengs (or grand prizes) were posted recently. Twitter account @kowatermelon, who also posted last year’s predictions based on calculations across South Korean charts and the awards’ winning criteria, posted this year’s daesang predictions on July 2, 2023.

However, the early predictions for MAMA Awards 2023 became a trending topic of discussion only recently. Although the Twitter account has only around 3.5k followers, engagement for their tweets, especially views, crosses over ten times the amount of its followers.

The predictions for Daesang AOTY (Artist of the Year), SOTY (Song of the Year), and AlOTY (Album of the Year) attracted more attention as they implied a competitive face-off between SEVENTEEN and NewJeans.

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Early predictions for MAMA Awards 2023

Third-generation K-pop powerhouse SEVENTEEN and one-year-old super rookies NewJeans come off as the biggest contenders in MAMA Awards 2023. Twitter account @kowatermelon’s tweets predicting the top 10 daesang contenders for this year’s coveted K-pop award show went viral recently on multiple social media sites.

Each daesang has different winning criteria, and the Twitter account apparently calculates all data to provide as close predictions as possible to the K-pop fandom. Before getting into the predictions, let’s understand the criteria for AOTY, SOTY, and AlOTY for MAMA Awards 2023.

Artist of the Year:

• Digital - 20%
• Album sales - 30%
• Global - 10%
• Judges - 40%

Album of the Year:

• Album sales - 60%
• Judges - 40%

Song of the Year:

• Digital - 40%
• Global - 20%
• Judges - 40%

As per the data from genuine websites such as the Circle charts and Spotify, Twitter user @kowatermelon calculated the numbers to provide early predictions for MAMA Awards 2023. SEVENTEEN claims the top spot in Artist of the Year and Album of the Year daesang, while NewJeans sits atop the Song of the Year prediction.

In AOTY, SEVENTEEN and NewJeans go head-to-head as the difference between their total scores is only 0.42 points. While the third-generation group has massive album sales, it lacks the digital and global scores wherein the Super Shy singers have incredible points.

The massive sales points for SEVENTEEN are also reflected in the Album of the Year category. The 13-member group became the first-ever and, currently, the only K-pop group to surpass six million sales of an album. Their album FML sits atop the AlOTY predictions. The closest to FML is Stray Kids’ 5-STAR.

In the Song of the Year category, however, NewJeans’ Ditto has over double points from the second contender, IVE’s I AM. Ditto has a total score of 57.46, whereas I AM only has 27.92 points.

It is also pertinent to note that these estimates do not count the judges’ 40% role. As per many fans, the tracking for MAMA Awards 2023 will only end in October, which suggests that the numbers may change by the time the award show announces its broadcast date.

Take a look at how some fans reacted to the early predictions below:

Fans comment on the early award predictions (Image via pannchoa)

Fans' comments on the early predictions (Image via pannchoa)

Meanwhile, JTBC reported in May that the MAMA Awards 2023 were scheduled for November 28 and 29 at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. CJ ENM soon shared an official statement saying that they were still in the process of reviewing the schedule and venues.