Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Marc Márquez decided he would not return for any of the remaining rounds of the 2025 MotoGP season. We will see him in 2026. Álex Márquez locked up second in the championship, clinching a Márquez brother 1-2, and Álex won in Malaysia. Nicolò Bulega would be in line for a wild card entry on the Ducati for the final few MotoGP rounds. A few IndyCar teams announced partnerships with Road to Indy programs, which we should talk about at a later date. Nine rookies took part in first free practice from Mexico City, and Patricio O'Ward did well before getting ill. An 11-time race winner could really lose the NASCAR Truck Series championship, and that feels wrong, which leads us to what has been on my mind, and it has been on my mind for some time.
The Playoff Future
Much of 2025 has been spent talking about championship format in NASCAR. The last few seasons have left people unsatisfied with the title winner, notably in the Cup Series. In the last two years, the Cup champion has had eight top five finishes (Ryan Blaney) and seven top five finishes (Joey Logano). Those are the lowest two totals since the first two Cup champions, Red Byron in 1949 and Bill Rexford in 1950, two seasons that were made up of eight races and 19 races respectively.
Joey Logano's average finish of 17.2 last season was the worst ever for a Cup champion. Someone has to have the worst, but it wasn't a case of 2024 being a down year for the entire grid. It was a case of the format allowing Logano to have a prayer when he wasn't a top ten driver for practically the entire season.
NASCAR formed a playoff committee ahead of the 2025 season to discuss what could be done in terms of the format and how things could be done differently to improve how the champion is the decided.
Over this year, we have seen a number of trial balloons floated, whether or not they are seriously being considered remains a mystery. The biggest thing everyone wants to get away from is the championship coming down to a one-race, best-finisher-takes-the-crown title decider. Ultimately, the finale is all that decides the champion in this current format. The rest of the races determine who the four contenders are, but then it comes down to who finishes better out of that four-driver group in one race. It has allowed for a team to take the championship and just nail that final race while timing victories to advance from ech round. Winning nine of the first 35 races and having no one come close to matching your output does not matter when one race decides the championship.
Some say the playoffs could become a 3-3-4 format, something the Dutch will appreciate. The first two rounds remain the same length, perhaps the playoff field is cut from 16 to eight after round one, but instead of having a three-race semifinal round before the finale, the final round will be four races with the champion decided on a points aggregate.
Another balloon that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. floated out was a 5-5 split of the playoffs. Five races to set the final round, and a five-race series to determine the champion. How many drivers make the final round and how they are decided was not expanded upon. Even playoff qualifications on how to determine the 16 drivers are up in the air as the win-and-in model could be dropped with more spots guaranteed on points from the regular season.
The biggest surprises has come in the last month or so, and for the first time in 22 years, a full season aggregate appears to be on the table. On the NASCAR-producded podcast Hauler Talk, which features NASCAR managing director of racing communication Mike Forde as one of the hosts, Forde addressed that during a playoff committee meeting, several individuals supported returning to a full season aggregate. It even led to Earnhardt, Jr. voicing support for the return, but his arrival to such a conclusion should be addressed.
This year's playoffs has not been a banger for NASCAR in terms of viewership. Every race has been essentially down, and significantly down with races now receiving fewer than two million viewers. Even though the races are on cable, it is far below past viewership numbers for cable playoff races, whether those were on ESPN, NBCSN or USA.
Earnhardt, Jr.'s reason for supporting a return to a full season aggregate: "We have nothing to lose."
NASCAR is a long way from the glory days of 15-20 years ago. The Cup Series has fallen to television viewership of the 1990s. The playoffs do not generate interest as intended. More people aren't tuning in to see who will be champion. They obviously do not care even if these races have greater stakes with drivers making more desperate and aggressive moves.
Everyone hit rock-bottom after the weekend of October 12 when the NHRA Texas Nationals drew greater television viewership with over two million people watching on Fox while the NASCAR Cup race from Las Vegas had 1.872 million viewers on UA. The NHRA benefitted from being preceded by 1:00 p.m. NFL games while the Las Vegas race was on cable and didn't start until after 5:30 p.m. Eastern, but there was a time when a NASCAR Cup race would get four million viewers on cable no matter when the race took place.
Change is coming. We aren't sure what that change will be.
It does feel like some tough conversations are being had. For over 20 years, NASCAR insinuated it needed a playoff to make the championship more compelling and keep viewers engaged through the end of the season, especially as races went head-to-head with football. For the first decade of playoffs, it tinkered with the format. In 2014, it adopted its most aggressive format to date and a complete departure from how championships had been decided over the first 60 years of NASCAR.
However, the winner-take-all, elimination format has not kept people interested. It has not turned some heads who otherwise would not be watching. At no point since 2014 has NASCAR stolen the attention of the sports world even if it was for one day with the championship finale. It isn't going to beat football in any of the ten weeks, but it does have the possibility to at least capture more attention for a week or two. That has never been the case.
The best NASCAR ever did was catching a rain-delay before the 2015 finale, which was Jeff Gordon's final race as a full-time driver, and Gordon had a shot to end his career as a champion. The rain delayed the Cup race into the start of the Sunday Night Football. Jimmie Johnson's seventh championship the following year did well in terms of viewership, but every year since 2015 has seen the viewership shrink.
No one was curious to see if Martin Truex, Jr. could hang on with Furniture Row Racing in 2017. The years of the "Big 3" with Truex, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick in 2018 and 2019 didn't see rating tick upward. NASCAR's most popular driver didn't increase viewership in 2020. Kyle Larson's historic 2021 season was not something the average sports fan felt compelled to watch.
Even after the "viral moment" of Ross Chastain driving into the wall at Martinsville to pass all the cars necessary to make the championship race in 2022, which was shown on SportsCenter and shared around the world on social media, viewership was down a smidge from the year before with 3.213 million viewers compared to 3.214 million in 2021. The last two finales have had fewer than three million viewers.
It is an adjustment to be staring at a possible return to a full season aggregate after how the last two decades have gone, but especially the last ten years. NASCAR felt so far removed from what we had prior to 2004 that there didn't feel like a chance we would go back to that, at least not this suddenly. I don't think we are going to see it happen. We are going to see some modified elimination format with a multi-race final round to determine a champion.
NASCAR has tied itself too much to a playoff identity that it will not entirely give it up, but it is acknowledging a flaw to a system it hung its hat on in terms of drama. For all the drama playoffs has created, the number of eyeballs watching has not justified its existence, nor has it justified the hollowness of some of these champions who have not felt like an accurate representation of entire seasons.
NASCAR has nothing to lose, but that doesn't mean it has anything to gain either. Adopting a full season aggregate to decide the champion isn't going to double the viewership, even if the championship does go to the finale. It is not as simple as the snap of the fingers and the problems are solved. The issues are deeper than the championship format.
People need a reason to care about those who are competing. It is what Formula One has found with Drive to Survive. There has been an outlet to expose an audience to who the drivers are, and the audience has made a connection with them to a point where they are willing to tune in for 24 races a season. Until NASCAR finds that breakthrough, and the drivers become individuals people feel attached to it will not matter one iota how the champion is decided.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Álex Márquez, but did you know...
Lando Norris won the Mexican Grand Prix, his sixth victory of the season, and Norris has a one-point in the World Drivers' Championship over Oscar Piastri.
Francesco Bagnaia won MotoGP's sprint race from Malaysia. Jake Dixon won in Moto2, his third victory of the season. Taiyo Furusato won in Moto3, his first career grand prix victory.
William Byron won the NASCAR Cup race from Phoenix, his third victory of the season. Taylor Gray won the Grand National Series race, his first career victory. Corey Heim won the Truck Series race, his 11th victory of the season.
Chaz Mostert swept the Supercars races from Surfers Paradise.
Coming Up This Weekend
NASCAR championships are awarded in Phoenix.
The Super GT season closes at Motegi.
