Joey Logano solidified himself as one of NASCAR’s all-time great drivers after his third NASCAR Cup Series Championship on Sunday. His win may have also been the tipping point for the league’s playoff format.
According to Sports Business Journal, NASCAR is expected to review its playoff format next year. However, it’s likely any changes to the format will only take place starting in 2026, since the 2025 season begins in February.
The NASCAR playoffs consist of the 16 drivers who score the most points in a 26-race regular season. The playoffs are divided into four rounds over 10 races, with the first three rounds each consisting of three races and the championship round being a single race. Four cars are eliminated after each of the first three rounds.
The report comes just days after Logano, a Team Penske driver, triumphed with the lowest average finishing position for a champion in NASCAR history. He was also originally knocked out in the second round of the playoffs but rejoined the field due to a disqualification to another driver.
Logano, who also won championships in 2018 and 2022, spoke to Front Office Sports and defended the playoff format. He said the previous system often risked a lackluster end to the year as certain drivers would already clinch the title before the final races.
“It used to be 36 weekends and it was just whoever scored the most points. So with three or four races to go, they’re crowning the champion and the last three races a year don’t matter,” Logano said on The FOS Interview. “No one’s gonna watch that. … It’s over, or the guys [are] so far checked out that no one’s even thinking about it.”
Logano acknowledged he benefited from the format this year, but he also reminded critics the structure before the playoffs wasn’t perfect, either.
“I think you got to take a step back sometimes because it’s easy for us to look back at things to say, ‘The good old days. Oh, in the good old days, it was like this. The good old days, it was like that. Was it, though?’” Logano said.
The first iteration of the playoff structure started in 2004, following a 2003 season that saw Matt Kenseth clinch the title despite winning just one race. That initial version was a 10-week-long “Chase for the Cup,” which also received backlash after Jimmie Johnson won five years in a row.
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