Following Denny Hamlin’s proposal, NASCAR set to debut in-season tournament in 2025
A year after Denny Hamlin brought up the idea of a bracket challenge, NASCAR is launching an unprecedented in-season tournament.
Three consecutive summer races set to air on Prime Video, the first streaming platform to air Cup Series races exclusively, will determine seeding for a field of 32 drivers. Tiebreakers will be determined by their next-best finish, followed by their season points position.
The five straight races airing on TNT Sports in 2025 will feature a head-to-head tournament. The driver who finishes higher on the leaderboard will advance over each of the five rounds, all the way to a $1 million prize for the winner.
It’s yet to be determined which tracks and races will be a part of this first-of-its-kind tournament that NASCAR unveiled Monday afternoon, following a story in Sportico.
2025 Coca-Cola 600 will be broadcast on Prime Video
Next year’s Coca-Cola 600 will be one of five races streaming on Prime Video next season, Amazon and NASCAR announced Tuesday morning.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is going to be in the broadcast booth for Cup Series races on both Prime Video and TNT. Concord’s annual spring race weekend will be from May 23-25, 2025, and the full schedule will be announced at a later date.
The final three of five races on Prime Video — the locations of which are yet to be determined — are the ones that will set seeding for the inaugural in-season tournament.
Before the NBA, Denny Hamlin suggested the idea for NASCAR
On his podcast last year, Hamlin was discussing ways to improve NASCAR’s television ratings.
It was still roughly three months before the NBA would announce plans for its inaugural in-season tournament that included the Charlotte Hornets last fall. Hamlin had a specific idea to increase competition, which he said he had already taken to NASCAR himself.
“If NASCAR could do this — we don’t need credit — but just hear me out,” Hamlin said last May on an episode of Actions Detrimental. “I have a fix. ... This is something I’ve been thinking about for years. And I actually brought it up to NASCAR probably a year-and-a-half ago.
“During the summer months, we should be kicking a** in the ratings. We’re just competing against baseball for the most part, maybe some big PGA events when they come up. I’ve got a fix. Five-week fix where we are gonna have more storylines than ever. The drivers are going to get amped up. This is it.”
