NASCAR will introduce an in-season tournament in 2025, TNT Sports, NASCAR and Amazon Prime Video announced May 13.
The tournament will span five races on TNT Sports and will fit within the existing NASCAR Cup Series regular season schedule.
Over these five races, 32 drivers will compete head-to-head in a bracket-style tournament, with the winner receiving a $1 million prize after the fifth race.
“We want it to be pretty simple, since it is kind of a race within a race,” said Brian Herbst, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Media and Productions, of the tournament concept. “This bracket-style format seemed simple enough, seemed easily explainable. And the other piece that we wanted to do is focus on the drivers in particular to the extent that we can create rivalries or storylines from a head-to-head perspective.”
Seeding for the tournament will be determined in the final three races of Amazon Prime Video’s broadcast coverage. TNT Sports’ coverage will begin the first race after APV’s final event.
“The in-season tournament will provide a new engagement experience for fans during an important stretch of the NASCAR schedule,” Charlie Neiman, Prime Video head of sports partnerships, said in a statement. “We are excited to help drive innovation within the sport and add a dynamic element to increase competition among the drivers.”
Both TNT Sports and Amazon Prime Video were introduced as part of the new media rights deal beginning in 2025. Both companies will broadcast five races each over the middle of the NASCAR season.
About the author
Kevin Nix has been with Frontstretch since February 2023. Hailing from Gilbert, Arizona, his dream is to be in the NASCAR media sphere full-time. He is a video assistant, working on the back end to streamline video and audio quality of all at-track interviews. Nix also writes about news every Monday for the site.
Nix graduated with a Master's Degree in Sports Journalism from ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix, Arizona. He also has bachelor's degrees in Communications and Political Science. In his downtime, he likes to read, play video games and take walks in the Arizona weather - when it's not too hot.
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That will create some backlash from the fans and the others and I don’t like it at all.
I find it hard to believe that it will be anything more than a minor distraction.
Question for you. What car is Chevy going to use a few years from now !
Corvette.
It won’t look like a Corvette but it will have the decals to say it is. LOL
Will still have about as much in common with NextGen car as the current car does.
I thought it was a Cadillac
is this the same idea as the dash for cash thing used in the trucks I think?
Should call it the Winston Million!! Oh wait.
Great idea Bobby DK!
Iroc and the Winston million wow
To the NASCAR Marketing Dept: It’s the product that sells, not your brainiac ideas.
It’s the ads that sell. Ads are the product. Welcome to 2024.
The rich( HMS,JGR) will just get richer!
Boy, someone really went off the deep end with this idea. Leave the “in-season tournaments” to soccer (not that there’s anything wrong with the F.A. Cup, etc.).
They could go totally bonkers and structure these extra races like this:
Teams receive two practice sessions; Two hours prior to qualifying, one hour prior to the race.
Field is set by fastest Qualifying lap.
No stage breaks, cautions only for wrecks/dangerous track conditions
No “lucky dog”. Lap down cars are lined up outside of lead lap cars on restarts to give them a chance to race and get back on lead lap.
No freezing the field, and no Green White Checker finishes. Cars will race back to start/finish when caution comes out. If final caution results in finish under yellow, so be it. No red flags in final 5 laps.
Points for the 5 races will be awarded using the Latford system. Driver with most points after 5 races wins.
My first thought is that your comment is a joke but, we are talking about NASCAR….
Even if they use something similar to the Latford point system, they would never call it that. That is a term they’d like to leave burried.
It was a bit tongue in cheek. NASCAR has gone so far from what it was that going back to the way they used to race would be a refreshing change. It would definitely be more interesting, especially if they also removed the front splitters and side skirts, went back to 5 lug steelies, and brought “mechanical” traction back into the picture. Who knows, maybe they could even use carburetors again and get Winston to sponsor it all! lol
I see what you did there!
NA$CAR already has one…the last ten events!
I think they should also throw in races on the frontstretch with the bracket drivers in those little cars the Shriners use, dressed as clowns, while a mariachi band plays.
i think it’s just another way to distract people from the lukewarm product that’s on the track.
How about a Designated Driver? He can fill in for a driver to qualify a car and instead of the usual driver starting at the rear of the field he starts where the DD qualified.
This idea came straight from the NBA.