Denny Hamlin uses NBA announcement to promote idea of NASCAR midseason tournament

It’s not the first time Denny Hamlin has broached the subject, but Saturday night gave him the perfect opportunity to bring it up again. As the NBA unveiled their in-season tournament on Saturday evening, Hamlin took to Twitter to keep stumping for NASCAR to adopt something similar.

Hamlin isn’t looking for NASCAR to take the exact idea from the NBA, but to create their own, one-off midseason showdown to drive up ratings. Hamlin has suggested his own idea for a format, too.

“So NBA doing a in-season tournament… I wonder if that’s possible in NASCAR,” Hamlin said, adding smiling emoji and “#bracketchallenge” to his message.

So @NBA doing a in-season tournament… I wonder if that’s possible in @NASCAR 😁. #bracketchallenge

— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) July 8, 2023

The bracket challenge hashtag is a reference to his own idea for 32-driver, single-elimination tournament in the middle of the year. This would take place over five weeks in the middle of the summer, with the winner taking home $3 million.

“I think, during the summer months, we should be kicking ass in the ratings,” Hamlin said in April. “We are going to have a bracket challenge. You have 10 weeks to get yourself in the top-32 in points. Five weeks in a row where you have a head-to-head competition and you’re seeded based off of where you are in points at Week 10. So, the No. 1 seed is whoever is first in points, they will be going up against the 32nd placed guy in points this week. So on and so forth. Whoever wins between the two moves onto the next week. That moves you on to the Round of 16. Then you’re gonna have head-to-heads once again. Down to eight, down to four, down to two.

“We would be wildly competitive for this. This would create so many storylines.”

Hamlin explained further why a midseason tournament helps NASCAR

Hamlin’s idea seems pretty genius. And it would definitely create an additional level of intrigue during the course of the NASCAR season.

Not only does the driver believe it will create even more competition among drivers, he also says it adds an element to the in-race strategy.

“You would have no idea how much the teams would change their strategies in the middle of the race to beat whoever they’re up against that given week to advance to the next round,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin also added to his idea in a tweet.

“NASCAR offers 50M to anyone with a perfect bracket (insure it),” he wrote. “Casual fans would be all over it. Sports bettors are bored in the summer with nothing but MLB to bet on. Would create so much chatter and content.”