NASCAR insider reveals reasons why playoff format won’t change in 2025

NASCAR announced Monday that there will be no changes to the playoff format for the 2025 Cup Series season.

The sanctioning body came to the decision to stay the course with its 16-driver elimination style format following a two-and-a-half-month discussion during the offseason. In the end, two-and-a-half months wasn’t enough time to come up with changes, Jeff Gluck of The Athletic wrote Tuesday.

“If NASCAR is to make any significant changes — more than sprinkling in a few more points for wins here and there, for example — it has to be vetted by a variety of different groups,” Gluck wrote. “Drivers will weigh in, of course, but so will team owners, manufacturers and, perhaps most important, NASCAR’s TV partners.

“And with three new TV broadcasters added to the mix after the season (Amazon Video, TNT Sports and The CW) to join existing partners Fox Sports and NBC Sports, officials felt there simply wasn’t enough time to sort through all the various scenarios and reach an attempted consensus.”

NASCAR spoke with many industry personnel this offseason and found three categories of opinion: Those who love the drama the playoff creates, those who hate the playoff format and the final group who were a mix of both.

Joey Logano’s championship sparks call for NASCAR playoff format change

Of course, the reason we’re here is because of Joey Logano‘s Cup Series title win in 2025. Logano had an average finish this past season of 17.1, the worst for a driver in a championship-winning season. But in the playoff format, adopted in 2004 and tweaked along the way, winning is everything. NASCAR switched to an elimination-style format in 2014, where 16 drivers make up the field. Winning at least one regular season race grants entry into the postseason, as Logano did at Nashville.

The playoffs take part across 10 races with four drivers eliminated after every three races until four remain. The season finale at Phoenix is a winner-take-all championship race. Logano has mastered the format, winning all three of his championships since 2018.

“Folks who had a lot of emotion and were really outspoken in the moment [after Logano’s win], after some time went by and we discussed it further were more in the ‘I just think it should change’ [group],” NASCAR senior vice president of racing development John Probst said. “That’s not to say no one gave us useful suggestions; a lot of folks did. But you’ve got to go through and evaluate all that and then run it through all the checkboxes of folks you’d like to have on board when you make changes of that magnitude.

“We just didn’t get to a point where you felt like, ‘We have to do it.’ But we hear the fans loud and clear and are looking at it actively.”

Though no tweaks or substantial changes are on the way for 2025, 2026 could be in play for a shake-up. NASCAR said it plans to assemble a group consisting of drivers, team owners, manufacturers and media partners to determine if the playoff format should look different next season. Changes are far from guaranteed, according to a letter NASCAR sent to drivers obtained by Gluck.

“It’s important to note this is not a guarantee that we’ll change anything,” NASCAR’s letter read. “But we owe it to the sport and our fans to explore the potential.”