{"id":159027,"date":"2025-08-19T18:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T18:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/159027\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T18:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T18:22:09","slug":"nascars-steve-odonnell-responds-to-playoff-format-backlash-reveals-if-change-is-on-the-table-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/159027\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR’s Steve O’Donnell responds to playoff format backlash, reveals if change is on the table for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The much talked about and debated NASCAR<\/a><\/strong> elimination style playoff format has largely stayed status quo since its inception in 2014. In 2017, stage racing and playoff points were introduced \u2014 other than that, nothing has changed. <\/p>\n

But after Joey Logano<\/strong>\u2018s victory in the championship race at Phoenix Raceway this past season, in which the Team Penske driver captured his third title with an average finish of 17.1 \u2014 the worst for a driver in a championship-winning season \u2014 the cries to change the playoff format have been loud. NASCAR even assembled a group consisting of drivers, team owners, manufacturers and media partners\u00a0to determine if the playoff format should look different next season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the 2025 playoffs soon to be underway, NASCAR is under some pressure to decide what the playoff format will look like next season. NASCAR president Steve O\u2019Donnell<\/strong> told Eric Estepp<\/a><\/strong> that they are in the \u201cfinal processes\u201d of determining what 2026 will look like. O\u2019Donnell mentioned that if they stick to the status quo, \u201cthere\u2019s got to be a pretty good explanation as to why.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASCAR\u2019s Steve O\u2019Donnell: \u2018Don\u2019t have the final answer yet\u2019 on 2026 playoff format<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are kind of in the final processes,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cWe\u2019ve tried to talk to as many of the stakeholder groups as possible, we have a couple more of those conversations to have. And I think for us, the decisions are going to be do you immediately put something in the Cup Series? Do you try something around next year\u2019s O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series and the Truck Series? Do you try three different things? Most sports are like, \u2018Let\u2019s try this in Triple-A baseball and if it works, great. If we want to tweak it, OK, let\u2019s make those tweaks and put it to the next level.\u2019 We\u2019ve historically not done that. So, we\u2019re just going to try to beat up a lot of those things. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will say that if we stay status quo and don\u2019t do anything in all three series, there\u2019s got to be a pretty good explanation as to why and to who we spoke to. But there is some momentum to try some things, for sure. I think you\u2019ll see that. I don\u2019t have the final answer yet, but I can assure the fans there\u2019s been a lot of really good debate, a lot of things to think through.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donnell revealed he is not on the playoff committee. From what he\u2019s gathered, however, those meetings have been productive. He said that there are three camps \u2014 those who can\u2019t stand the playoffs, those who want to make tweaks to it and those who like the way it is. There are a lot of voices in the room, and the challenge for NASCAR is picking the best route to go down. <\/p>\n

What are critics saying about the NASCAR playoff format?<\/p>\n

Critics of the playoff format will say it doesn\u2019t reward consistency over the course of a 36-race season. The \u201cbest\u201d driver isn\u2019t the one who wins the championship at the end of the season. When it comes to the 16-driver postseason field, winning one regular season race grants you entry. Austin Dillon<\/strong> entered Saturday\u2019s race at Richmond Raceway 28th in the points standings and is now playoff bound after his victory there. The same thing happened last year at Daytona International Speedway when Harrison Burton<\/strong>, 34th in the points, took the checkered flag and clinched his playoff spot.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donnell acknowledged there are a lot of different dynamics to balance. Ultimately, they want a champion that \u201call our fans are proud of in terms of how it was determined.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven last year, Kyle Larson<\/strong> rolling off all the wins he did and [fans were saying] if he\u2019s not in the final four, it\u2019s ridiculous and not a good reflection of it and therefore, you should put more emphasis on the number of wins. OK, fast forward to this year \u2014 we\u2019re having discussions about should wins mean a lot more in terms of points,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cYou take SVG<\/strong>, who I think is a great guy and has great skill, but polarizing, like, woah, should he be treated the same as Kyle Larson, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you\u2019ve got to balance a lot of different dynamics of where drivers are winning, what tracks, and take everyone\u2019s name out of it and say, \u2018This is the format.\u2019 Ultimately, I can assure you what we want is for the championship and the champion to be someone that all our fans are proud of in terms of how it was determined.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The much talked about and debated NASCAR elimination style playoff format has largely stayed status quo since its…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":159028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-159027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115056826474415048","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}