NFL proposal spells bad news for NASCAR, Daytona 500 fans

Approaching year number four of the NFL's expanded 17-game regular season schedule, there are already talks about a further expansion to 18 games. Commissioner Roger Goodell is reportedly in favor of the idea, which would push the Super Bowl back by a week.

The Super Bowl had been contested on the first Sunday in February when there were 16 regular season games. Upon the expansion to 17 games, it was moved to the second Sunday. A further expansion would push it back to the third Sunday, which would place it on Presidents' Day weekend on most occasions.

Presidents' Day is the third Monday of the month, meaning that any February 21 Super Bowl would not be during the holiday weekend. However, Goodell specifically referenced the fact that the Super Bowl's new date would be Presidents' Day weekend since many fans would be off from work the next day, meaning that that's what the remainder of the schedule would be centered around.

NFL proposal bad news for NASCAR, Daytona 500 fans

Everybody knows that the NFL is still king, and anything and everything can and will be forced to take a back seat to the Super Bowl. And under this particular proposal, that is not good news for NASCAR and the Daytona 500.

The Daytona 500 has been contested on Presidents' Day weekend for the majority of its 66-year existence, including every year since 2018. If the Super Bowl ends up in that date, NASCAR is going to be the one that needs to make a significant change.

More than likely, this would require a date change, which could have further ramifications as far as the 36-race schedule goes since the "Great American Race" is the season opener.

At the very least, the race start time would have to be moved up several hours. And if that is not an option, then in years the Super Bowl is on Fox, the Daytona 500 could end up being relegated to Fox Sports 1.

At the end of the day, money talks, and the NFL is going to do what the NFL wants to do. It's up to NASCAR to respond accordingly, because America's most popular sporting league will stop for nobody.