NASCAR Is Reportedly Considering Ditching Their Playoff Format & Going Back To A Full-Season Points Championship

Are NASCAR fans finally going to get their wish?

There’s been a lot of debate recently over the NASCAR points system, and whether the sport should do away with the playoffs and go back to crowning a champion based on full season points standings.

NASCAR first adopted a postseason points format back in 2004 when it unveiled the “Chase for the Nextel Cup.” Previously, the series had simply awarded points based on finishing position and whoever had the most points at the end of the season was a championship. Simple enough, right?

But back in 2003, NASCAR Cup Series champion Matt Kenseth stunk up the show. He dominated the points standings despite only winning one race the entire season, and was so far ahead before the final race of the season that he had already locked up the championship – making the season finale essentially meaningless.

In an attempt to boost ratings at the end of the season when NASCAR was competing with the NFL for viewers, they’ve since gone to some sort of a playoff system, though the format has changed over the years.

Under the current system, which was largely implemented in 2014, a driver can lock themselves into the playoffs with a win during the first 26 races, regardless of where they are in the points standings. The thought was that it would incentivize drivers to race hard to compete for a win each week, but there’s one obvious problem: If a driver who was well below the cut line somehow manages to sneak out a win, they take a spot in the playoffs away from a driver and team who performed better throughout the season.

We saw it last year when Harrison Burton won at Daytona and took a spot in the playoffs, only to be eliminated in the first round. And the discussion came up again this year when Shane Van Gisbergen, who was sitting at 33rd in points at the time, won the race in Mexico City over the summer to lock himself into the playoffs. (He went on to win three more races, making it harder to argue that he didn’t belong in the playoffs, though there’s certainly discussion to be had based on his points standings and performance throughout the rest of the season – and the fact that he was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs).

Last year’s champion, Joey Logano, heard plenty of criticism over his championship run during what was, overall, a pretty lackluster season. There’s no real arguing that he was the best driver all season, but a win at Nashville locked him into the playoffs and he managed to win at the right times during the final 10 races to secure the championship.

All of the controversy has led to renewed calls for NASCAR to do away with the playoff format altogether and go back to simply crowning a championship based on who has the most points at the end of the season. It not only rewards consistency, but it places a higher value on running well throughout the season and doesn’t risk a driver winning a championship based on what critics call “arbitrary” rules.

And it sounds like NASCAR may be open to the option.

Over the past few years, the conventional wisdom has been that the television networks were against eliminating the playoffs, wanting the drama they created to boost viewership during a tough time for the sport. But when you look at the ratings for the last few races, they’ve been…well, pretty abysmal.

NASCAR has been open about exploring changes to the playoffs for the 2026 season, with one proposal floating around that would take the 10-race playoffs to three rounds instead of four, with a final round of 3 races instead of just a single race to decide the champion.

And it was recently reported that NBC, the network that broadcasts the entirety of the Cup Series playoffs, had taken themselves out of discussions about the format and was leaving the decision entirely in NASCAR’s hands.

So what is NASCAR going to do?

Well according to Jeff Gluck with The Athletic (who’s one of the best NASCAR reporters out there, by far), the sport convened a committee back in February to discuss the future of the playoffs. And since then, Gluck reports that the sentiment of the committee has shifted towards eliminating the playoffs altogether and returning to a full-season, 36-race championship format:

“In the most recent meeting last week, numerous influential committee members spoke on behalf of scrapping the playoffs and returning to the full-season points format NASCAR used until 2003, which crowned a champion simply by total points accrued over the entire schedule of races.”

Proponents of the full-season points system argue that it rewards the best overall driver, not just the driver who’s the best in the playoffs (or at a particular racetrack like the Team Penske drivers have been at Phoenix). And there’s still the possibility to keep elements of the current system, like the revamped points format that awards points for stage wins.

But just a few weeks ago, the thought of a 36 race championship seemed completely out of the question, despite growing calls from fans and even many in the sport.

Now though, it seems like NASCAR is at least open to the idea. Am I holding my breath that it’ll happen in 2026? No. But anything we can get closer to the full-season championship is a step in the right direction.The post NASCAR Is Reportedly Considering Ditching Their Playoff Format & Going Back To A Full-Season Points Championship first appeared on Whiskey Riff.