This Sunday marked the official start of the most anticipated event of the year.
I’m sorry, what’s that? Playoffs? Playoffs??
I was referring to the start of the NFL regular season. After a seven-month hiatus, America’s new national pastime started anew to great fanfare with wall-to-wall coverage that actually started Thursday (Sept. 5) night.
While the crowd in Atlanta wasn’t sparse, it wasn’t exactly a sell-out similar to what we saw at Darlington, Daytona or even Michigan the weeks prior. With a season that runs from Valentine’s Day to almost Thanksgiving, it raises an honest question: Does NASCAR really need to try to compete with the NFL this time of year? This week, Trenton Worsham and Wyatt Watson defend the respective goals in 2-Headed Monster.
Read the Room: Less is More
While every sport wants to be on top, simply saying it with conviction won’t make it so. While we can sit around with rose-colored glasses remembering when NASCAR was on par with, if not surpassing, the NFL, this is not now.
NASCAR must focus on itself and the sport and be its best without worrying about what a stick-and-ball sport is doing or when they’re playing. This line of thinking has led us to the controversial playoff system, which can lead to fake game 7 moments or something not of a driver’s doing taking away their chances. While shocking and storyline-driving, it does not crown the best driver of the entirety of the season. What will be next, Monday Night NASCAR? Thursday Night Lights? The DaleCast?
If NASCAR truly wanted to compete with the NFL and college football, they would listen to drivers like Denny Hamlin and his concerns about the charter deal. That deal was signed by all but two teams, with murmurs of arm-twisting with owners speaking on anonymity.
Formula 1 and IndyCar thrive in their own worlds, one of them all over the planet, while also racing on Sundays. F1 got a popularity boost through the Netflix docu-series Drive To Survive. The NFL has Hard Knocks and Netflix series. If anything, copy this and give the fans more NASCAR access behind the scenes. A pit-crew-focused show would be a great example of something new they could try. What they DON’T copy or try are the things they should. F1 has the luxury of being worldwide with their races so the times don’t always overlap with football games.
NASCAR, however, has a 3:30 p.m. ET start time at tracks without lights.
The schedule is the core issue as to what needs to change. I do not foresee this ever changing as sports betting gets bigger and bigger, and the NFL is expanding worldwide, and college football has its passionate hold in America on Saturdays. College football specifically seems to overlap with the base NASCAR reaches in the Southern United States, making those fans choose between racing or football. And nothing but the Tide, as some say, will have NASCAR losing every time.
Less is more. We do not need a February-to-November schedule of racing. Crews, drivers and team members no doubt get burnout and, in 2025, the only off weekend for the Cup series is Easter. Some tracks don’t need two dates and some would do better in a rotating schedule creating the demand for fans when it comes back the next season. The market naturally craves more and certain tracks that aren’t raced every other year.
NASCAR needs to stop chasing the NFL and college football and stay in their two or three lanes, depending on the track. Focus on making the product better for everyone without focusing on competing against leagues you’ll never beat.
Start the playoffs in early August and have the season end in mid-October, or start the playoffs for a summer shootout in mid-July and end in August, a week or so before football season kicks off….also adding in a few ‘bye’ weeks. If NASCAR copies anything these leagues do, it’s giving the teams more breaks and helps prevent over-saturation of the product. – Trenton Worsham
NASCAR Doesn’t Need the NFL’s Permission
The NASCAR season runs from early February to late November. Why on earth would the sport now begin to worry about if races interfere with NFL games?
A full Sunday NFL slate runs from the 1 p.m. ET afternoon games to the Sunday night matchup that kicks off at 8:15 p.m. ET. Unless the sport wants to move back one day and run races on Thursday through Saturday night each week, it is inevitable that NASCAR will go head-to-head with all types of NFL matchups from the Kansas City Chiefs to the Carolina Panthers.
Besides, all but one Cup Series race from now until the end of the season is scheduled between 2 or 3:30 p.m. ET. Do you really think NASCAR is worried about the NFL and their games with those start times?
Even if NASCAR wanted to flex a race away from a marquee NFL matchup, it could only move it up one hour, and only if weather is playing a factor in getting at least half the race distance in. NASCAR in no way should be threatened or worried about what football games are being played. They need to be focused on the race going on and the playoff format.
It is coincidental that the NASCAR playoffs start at the beginning of pro football season, but with how long the season is and no real conversation about shortening the schedule, NASCAR will have to bite the bullet and compete with the NFL every Sunday come playoff time.
In terms of the start of NFL season, adding or taking away an off week during the season won’t help much anyway. We had only two off weeks for the Olympics this season, and the sport will return to taking a break during Easter Sunday next season, the only break of the year.
Really, the only concern that I have with the NFL is if they plan to expand to having two bye weeks or an extra game, pushing the Super Bowl into the Daytona 500 weekend. That’s the only case in which NASCAR should be worried. Going head-to-head with the most popular sports program year-by-year would be a terrible decision to make, and the NFL would force NASCAR’s hand to start the season either a week earlier or, more likely, a week later.
But in regard to the regular season of the NFL, NASCAR shouldn’t be worried with what the NFL is doing elsewhere. However, they should be more worried about a much bigger and important issue to the future of the sport: the charter holdouts from 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports. — Wyatt Watson
Wyatt Watson has followed motorsports closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretch as a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt is one of Frontstretch's primary IndyCar correspondents, providing exclusive video content on site. He hosts Frontstretch's Through the Gears podcast and occasionally The Pit Straight.You can find Wyatt's written work in columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monsteras well as exclusive IndyCar features. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media team, posting unique and engaging content for Frontstretch.
Wyatt Watson can be found on X @WyattWRacing
The NFL had a game in Brazil. Maybe NA$CAR should try that. The NFL has games in Germany. Maybe NA$CAR should try that. The NFL has games in England. Maybe NA$CAR should try that. Which enterprise would get the most attendance and TV audience? This is NOT a competition that NA$CAR will ever get close to..
The only thing inaccurate about the article is that Nascar controls the schedule. They don’t. They people that bought the TV rights do. I’m surprised TV isn’t pushing for less overlap between sports seasons. With the NFL going to 18 weeks, overlap will happen. Fewer races means less money coming in the door from sponsors and prize money available and less TV revenue. My guess is that the number of races is now locked in for 7 years…not a variable anymore.
This means that 8 mid-week or double event weekends are needed to get the Nascar season out of football season (or 6 if you get rid of that foolish Clash and All Star race). It could be possible in Virginia and North Carolina there are tracks close together and close to Charlotte. But during Covid, mid-week shows did not draw big numbers…but they were also poorly advertised.
We know one thing…no one will complain because that’s against the new charter rules. lol Bundling 3 races like Martinsville, Richmond and Bristol together with one as a mid-week show would be an interesting experiment during months when school is out. There could be camping with shuttles running to the tracks. Family plans. Stuff that gets the kids to the tracks and could be a great week vacation. And if the Clash stays local (and not moving it to #$%@& Brazil) both the All Star race and the Clash can be mid-week as well. Just a couple of ideas.
NA$CAR needs to understand where they fit in the grand scheme. Until NA$CAR gets major cities fighting over who will spend the most taxpayer money to build the fanciest tracks while handing over all profits to NA$CAR, they are nobody. Until Colleges start building race cars and race tracks to use as a feeder system to the Cup series, they are nobody. Until high schools start imposing crippling taxes on homeowners to pay for state of the art race tracks, racing programs, and disgustingly overpaid Crew Chiefs to train young kids for advancement to the feeder series, they are nobody.
Seeing a trend? Until massive amounts of public funds are used to support the entire NA$CAR entity as the NFL is supported (whether individual taxpayers even give a **** about football or not), they are nobody. It’s not even a competition.
NA$CAR needs to just shut up and be thankful to take what it’s given! Ironically, this is the same thing they’re telling their team owners to do!
The “not all tracks need 2 dates” argument is starting to lose relevance as only 10 tracks on the schedule even have 2 dates going forward- Daytona, Atlanta, Phoenix, Vegas, Martinsville, Darlington, Bristol, Talladega, Kansas, and Charlotte. Most of the old second dates have been moved to new tracks as NASCAR looks to expand into new markets or just mix up the schedule. The next 3 tracks to lose a second date will probably see their races go to Portland, Montreal, and a new southern California track. Daytona and Talladega are almost certainly keeping their second dates, and Atlanta is probably safe for a little while given their recent renovations. That leaves only 4 additional off-weeks, or 4 tracks that would lose a date without replacing it. To get what you need to avoid the NFL schedule you’d have to start taking races away from tracks with only 1.
NASCAR used to race until the Sunday before Thanksgiving, but they removed the off-weeks and the season ends 2 weeks sooner now. Maybe they should look at when NFL teams are in town and don’t have NASCAR races nearby.
In the United States how many people plan their Sundays around the NFL in person or on TV and Saturdays around College football? How many plan their days around Brian’s product? I could include Friday night High School football.
For years people DID plan their weekend around NA$CAR! But those were the loyal fans that Brian decided weren’t good enough for NA$CAR, so he did everything he could to run them all off.
Oh the irony of seeing a Notre Dame football ad in the middle of this article.