NASCAR Announces a Mid-Season, $1 Million Bracket Tournament for 2025
NASCAR is hoping to drive fans to some new television partners in 2025 by instituting a mid-season bracket tournament, with the winner taking home $1 million.
The sport’s new TV deal has the first 12 NASCAR Cup series races of the season televised by Fox Sports. The final 14 races will appear on NBC Sports. It’s the 10 races in the middle of the 36-race season that figure into the bracket tournament—the first five will air on Amazon Prime and the second five on TNT.
The drivers will compete for race wins and points as they do now, with the bracket tournament being a separate component. Here’s how it will work: The bracket will feature 32 drivers. They will be determined by how they do in races 15 through 17, aired on Amazon Prime. The actual competition among those 32 drivers will take place in races 18 through 22, aired on TNT. Drivers will compete head-to-head, with the top-finishing driver of each race advancing over five rounds.
NASCAR has not yet announced its 2025 season schedule, so it isn’t known what tracks will be represented in the 10 races airing on Amazon Prime and TNT.
“With the launch of our new media rights partnerships in 2025, we were excited to partner with Prime Video and TNT Sports to collaborate on fan engagement concepts that drive storylines in our sport and innovation from a production perspective,” said Brian Herbst, NASCAR senior vice president for media and productions.
“The idea of an in-season tournament has been discussed within the NASCAR industry, and as we started to focus on adding promotional elements that drive interest throughout the season, we were excited by the opportunity to leverage the marketing weight of Amazon and TNT Sports to bring this concept to life,” Herbst said.
The new seven-year TV deal is reportedly worth $7.7 billion, which includes an agreement with The CW network to air the entire 33-race NASCAR Xfinity season each year from 2025 to 2031.
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Well how about a point champion that just did not have a good fall.
It is Erin the best driver does not win. Worse if they sit out a year and com in at June, win a race then the championship.
Well how about a points champion that just did not have a good fall.
It is bad when the best driver does not win. Worse if they sit out a year and come in at June, win a race then the championship.
As a 50+ year Nascar fan here in Canada, I am getting fed-up with Nascar’s treatment of the fans that made the sport. I’m not interested enough to subscribe to new pay streams just to watch a few races – which are often boring anyway, and here in Canada, we often can’t get some of the U.S. pay channels anyway. Nascar is trying to get new fans – but believe me, they are losing many of their long-time supporters.
It could be worse. Major League Baseball does not want me to watch any game through their paid for MLB app played by the Rangers or Astros here in Austin which hosts neither baseball team. So if I try to watch the Cubs play the Rangers or someone playing the Astros I can’t. But I can watch the Cubs play any other team without issue. Stupid lockout rules when the game is not on any of my local channels. Some sports are either stuck in the past when broadcasting was different or just don’t understand that their archaic rules do not make fans.
Very seldom are the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity races not on TSN. Fox. or NBC. Fox Racing carries the truck series, ARCA, and NASCAR qualifying, as well as NHRA drag racing.
I’m in Grimsby Ontario and these are part of our cable package.
Gotta agree with Ian on that totally. Same with NHRA, don’t see much of it anymore either now.