2026 was the year NASCAR was going to get back into the good graces of the mainstream.
Fans were going to be flocking back to the sport in droves.
The big, bad illegitimate championship-breeding playoffs were gone, and the fans who claimed the sport "died with Dale" were going to schedule their entire Sundays around the Cup Series race once again. NASCAR was bound for a golden age, and the boom was going to be spectacular.
Did anybody actually believe that?
NASCAR hasn't mattered to the mainstream for years. Removing the playoffs was never going to fix that. And the decline in ratings in the first eight races to begin the Chase proved it.
Talladega Superspeedway's race this past Sunday was up 1% year over year, but the fact that that's been considered one of the biggest successes of the postseason thus far is exactly why this is an issue in the first place.
I do believe the old playoffs were gimmicky. They had a habit for crowning champions who were not the best drivers from start to finish of a season, even though everybody played by the same rules. And yes, the fact that NASCAR guaranteed the championship battle would come down to the final race did, in fact, take something away from full-season performance, even if it did provide the desired Game 7 moments every year.
But in a series that has long seen its overall viewership on the decline, fans were always going to tune out when a championship is decided with multiple weeks to go as well.
And that's basically the situation NASCAR is now in, after Kyle Larson's Talladega victory put him 73 points ahead of second place with just 152 points left up for grabs from now until the end of the season.
And guess what? Fans have found reasons to complain about the Chase as well, because an alleged "undeserving" champion (who is already eliminated from leading the series in total points, for whatever that's worth) is well on his way to winning the title.
Who could have seen that coming?
The playoffs absolutely had their flaws. But the majority of those complaints were either (a) complaining for the sake of complaining or (b) classic social media echo chamber. Some fans did legitimately despise the format, but nobody was actually allowed to have a differing opinion without being totally vilified.
The fact that fans actually believed the postseason format change was going to change anything regarding the sport's publicity is a testament to just how blinding the "playoffs bad!" blinders were.
The fact is that outside of the sport's core fanbase, people simply don't care enough about NASCAR to bother.
Is it a bad thing that the title fight is all but over with two races to go? Not necessarily; that's one of the reasons why the playoffs were considered gimmicky. If you have done well enough to build up that kind of a lead, more power to you. There's no logical argument in which Larson is "undeserving".
There is, however, a logical argument about tuning out early if the title battle is truly over. Even in the original Chase era (2004 to 2013), every single championship battle came down to the season finale.
All things considered, the fact that there's just barely a championship battle, coupled with ongoing gimmicks such as stage racing, the lackluster nature of the Next Gen car's on-track racing product pretty much everywhere, the lack of big personalities in the sport, and everything else that fans like to complain about, show that "win and in" was never as big of a problem as we were led to believe.
There were surely fans who tuned out during the "win and in" era; ratings obviously declined then too. But the fact that ratings have continued to decline throughout the 2026 postseason illustrates that the playoffs weren't the driving factor that everybody seemed to claim they were.
NASCAR isn't attracting new fans, and an already declining core fanbase is simply headed in the same direction as it was under the old format.
And yes, we get that NASCAR is competing with NFL on Sundays this time of year. But last time I checked, that's been the case since... forever. That didn't just start in 2026. If anything, more people own multiple screens now than they ever have. If anything, NASCAR ratings should be up by default, for anybody even considering watching, even as a casual fan.
And that's another reason why one single race's 1% year-over-year increase should not be a major story.
Instead, ratings are down across the board. And the convenient excuse of "win and in" is sorely missed by those who spent years claiming that the playoffs were the problem, and that eliminating them would actually be a solution.
And with Larson possessing a stranglehold on the championship with two races left, don't be surprised if that ratings slide continues. Predictably, many of the same fans who were upset by the gimmicky nature of the old playoff format won't even bother to tune in now that the title is effectively wrapped up early.
I do think there was some truth to the theory that the first seven postseason races could have been less viewed because they were on USA Network, rather than NBC, and the switch to NBC certainly boosted Talladega's numbers.
But if fans really wanted to watch, they'd have literally taken the extra five seconds to find USA Network. And the first seven playoff races were on USA Network in 2025 as well, so again, it's an excuse that doesn't hold up from a year-over-year perspective.
Perhaps more noteworthy is the fact that ratings were down 27% from the previous race on NBC, that being the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway in late August.
And on a side note, would anybody have really wanted to go out of their way to watch whatever the heck those first 100 laps were on Sunday at Talladega? Maybe Scott Dixon was right...
And maybe fans have caught on.
The penultimate race of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season is the Xfinity 500, which is set to be shown live on NBC from Martinsville Speedway beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, November 1. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss it!
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