According to the Sports Business Journal, changes to the playoffs could come as soon as 2025 with a larger overhaul possible for 2026.
NASCAR moved away from a traditional points-based system in 2004 with the implementation of the “Chase” format.
NASCAR moved to a playoffs system in 2014, which has come under continued scrutiny for the decade that the winner-takes-all format has existed.
If any changes do come for 2025, they would be small, per the Sports Business Journal.
Growing speculation of imminent change comes off the back of Team Penske’s Joey Logano winning this year’s NASCAR Cup Series in controversial circumstances.
Logano had the lowest average finishing position (17.1) across the season’s 36 races but won his way into the Round of 16 and progressed all the way to the Championship 4.
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On US radio station SiriusXM, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer hinted at an impending review.
“When you leave Phoenix and the questions that are being asked; do you have the most deserving champion? – I would say yes,” Sawyer said.
“Again, as we just went through with Joey’s season, his body of work, yeah, some misfortunes by others, but that happens in sports.
“So I would think as we take a deeper dive and look at this and we look at, A; how do you get in the playoffs? B; how do you move from round to round and is that equitable? Is that the best way to do it? And I think you take all that input.
“We’ve got some really smart people in our industry with our teams and our drivers and being able to get feedback and see exactly maybe what we have is the best model, but if it’s not we’re open, we’re all ears on it, and we have some ideas but we want to make sure as an industry we’re doing the right thing for our sport and the right thing to crown our champions.”
According to the report, NASCAR could scratch its win-and-you’re-in policy.
Other concepts include whether the regular season champion should be given a free pass deeper into the playoffs.
Another idea is whether the final should have more than four drivers fight for the title and if it should be a winner-takes-all final.
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