Brad Keselowski Brands Playoffs as “Very Unhealthy” for NASCAR

RFK Racing owner driver Brad Keselowski shared his thoughts on the needs to scrap the playoff format to make championship healthy.

Brad Keselowski Brands Playoffs as “Very Unhealthy” for NASCAR

14. Brad Keselowski

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Since its introduction in 2004, the NASCAR playoffs format has been the biggest topic of discussion in the garage. Now with competition being closer than ever in the Next-Gen era, and clutch runs getting rewarded more than full-season consistency, the criticism has intensified. 2012 Cup champion Brad Keselowski has now shared a bold take on the situation.

In his latest interview with Jeff Gluck, the RFK Racing owner driver Brad Keselowski was asked about the changes that is needed to make the sport better. He made three points, starting with evolution if tracks, getting rid of the playoffs and addition of a new OEM to the sport. The No:6 Ford driver declared that the post-season is unhealthy for the sport.

Second, the whole playoff thing has to go away. The nuance of having 10 races that are more important than 20-some others is very unhealthy for the sport.

Brad Keselowski said via Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.

The veteran believes the format not only is demeaning for the race but also for the track and the post-season races being direct competitors of other sports, muddies the water for NASCAR. He declared that the format isn’t working for the sport at the moment and it is high time it is scrapped before things get too bad to fix.

It’s demeaning to the other tracks and races. And unfortunately, those 10 races that are supposed to mean more are in direct competition with other sports. It muddies the water. It’s not working for the sport. Those two would be 1A and 1B.

Brad Keselowski added.

How Brad Keselowski wants the track to be changed for the evolution of the sport

Earlier in the conversation, Keselowski explained what the tracks needs to in order to make racing better for everyone involved. He pointed out that the track needs to find more ways to generate revenue outside of NASCAR, as the lack of other revenue sources puts them in bad spot from a business perspective.

Brad Keselowski (via Imago)
Brad Keselowski (via Imago)

The first one is the tracks, in general, need to find more ways to generate revenue outside of NASCAR. A lot of these tracks you go to, if you come to them on a Tuesday, three weeks before or after the race, there’s like three people that work there. There’s nobody around. …

Brad Keselowski said.

The major source of revenue that they have at the moment is their share from the NASCAR media deal, which is worth $1.1 billion. This doesn’t give them the opportunity to raise capital to develop the track, as well as invest in fan experience, for the long-term success of the sport.

This unsustainable model creates a situation where NASCAR fails to meet the standard for competition that other sport series has set. It will create a butterfly effect that eventually stops the cash flow to the venue, leading to stunted growth.

The tracks aren’t able to raise enough capital to invest in the fan experience, or they’re significantly subsidized out of the media rights (TV deal) to make their business sustainable. That creates a series of dominoes downstream, whether it be the fan experience that doesn’t rival other sports or draining cash flow that potentially could be coming to the teams and enabling things like testing. …

Brad Keselowski added.

The comments from RFK Racing veteran regarding the tracks as well as the format is something many in the racing community will agree with. NASCAR needs to make some big changes to evolve for better and it needs to come from both the sanctioning body as well as the teams.

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