The best selling country group of the new Millennium, Rascal Flatts, was honored with the “Decade Award” by the American Country Awards this evening during a live broadcast on Fox from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. This award recognizes the band for their contribution to country music in the past ten years.

In other great news, Rascal Flatts’ debut single on Big Machine Records, “Why Wait,” tops the Billboard Country Singles & USA Today/Country Aircheck charts today and becomes their twelfth career #1 single.

Since their musical debut in 2000, Rascal Flatts-Gary LeVox, Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney- has sold 20 million albums and 25 million digital downloads. The band has delivered 12 #1 singles to the top of the chart and has more titles in Billboard’s Top 100 Songs of the Decade than any other group in the format. With the #1 debut of their new CD, Nothing Like This, Rascal Flatts has the distinction of being one of only 4 acts to have 6 consecutive studio albums debut in the top spot on the Country Albums chart this decade. Nothing Like This also debuted at #6 on the Top 200 chart.

Rascal Flatts is the most awarded country group of the decade with nearly 40 trophies from the American Country Awards, Academy of Country Music, American Music Awards, Country Music Association, People’s Choice Awards and more.

In concert, Rascal Flatts continues to be one of the hottest touring acts of the decade with more venue attendance records than any other country act. They have played over 400 dates as a headline act, over 700 since 2000, with a ticket tally of nearly 6 million. Among these shows includes 3 consecutive sold-out performances at Madison Square Garden and the band also became the first and only country music act to sell out Wrigley Field.

Gary, Jay and Joe Don have also raised over $3 million dollars in the past few years for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn. and recently the hospital named its pediatric Surgery Center after the group- the “Rascal Flatts Surgery Center.”