Enough Is Enough Full Season Championship.

virtualbalboa said:
Wrestling - and I say this as someone who doesn't watch it anymore (I could spend awhile on that but will spare all as it is irrelevant) - is a simulacrum of an athletic endeavor which is really a performance art. The reason why wrestling became fixed in the first place was to at some point guarantee the fans who were watching it the euphoric release of seeing the "face" (good guy) overcome the odds and beat the "heel", which is something that real professional sports, most namely boxing, couldn't guarantee. You build up the moment of the heel receiving his comeuppance at the hands of the face. By comparison to what wrestling is when it is successful, the NASCAR points' system doesn't value long term narrative story telling: it does value chaos and controversy and "moments" that could go viral.

Interestingly as a parallel, "valuing chaos, controversy, and viral moments" is actually a consistent complaint about WWE between 2001 and 2023 when Vince McMahon was finally sent packing for the last time. During that time, the WWE became increasingly insular, consumed almost all of its competitors domestically, and saw ratings and live attendance tank. Since he's been gone, the numbers have gone the opposite direction for the first time since Steve Austin was a household name and The Rock was an employee rather than a major shareholder and board member.
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Professional wrestling is athletic performance art / athletic theater.

There's nothing sport about it whatsoever. It's fiction. It's staged theater. People like it. That's fine. But NASCAR should not have any parallels with something like that.
 
Blaze said:
Different forms of entertainment. Wrestling is like any other tv show, or movie. Racing isn’t. I have a different opinion than you .
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This. But I just think with NASCAR being sport that has its own fans questioning its legitimacy at times, we don't need any parallels drawn, and it certainly isn't something that's going to help non fans want to enjoy it as sport.
 
jaqua19 said:
Professional wrestling is athletic performance art / athletic theater.

There's nothing sport about it whatsoever. It's fiction. It's staged theater. People like it. That's fine. But NASCAR should not have any parallels with something like that.
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Well, right now, the closest thing that it resembles is post-Attitude Era WWE. I can't think of a single professional sport that it resembles. Dunno what to tell you about that!
 
StandOnIt said:
When you are kicking out a driver who was 11th in points and giving their spot to a driver who is in 32nd place and that is after after a win and nothing else, Something is seriously wrong. Some Nascar fans are never going to swallow that part.
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I think the championship is legitimate. It always is. I also prefer some kind of playoff/Chase to full season.

But this format absolutely isn't it. The first round doesn't even feel special because we all know that drivers who shouldn't be there are getting bounced.

The point of a chase, or a playoff run, is for that 11th place driver you are talking about to go on a run, make a push, or at least have a strong points finish.

Now, he may have a run that would have put him 8th in full season points, 3rd in chase points, and he's gonna finish no better than 17th for having a legit top 7 kind of season ultimately.

Win and your in, elimination is stupid. It's just stupid.
 
virtualbalboa said:
Well, right now, the closest thing that it resembles is post-Attitude Era WWE. I can't think of a single professional sport that it resembles. Dunno what to tell you about that!
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Don't know what that means. Was lost Attitude - Era WWE a legit competition?
 
jaqua19 said:
This. But I just think with NASCAR being sport that has its own fans questioning its legitimacy at times, we don't need any parallels drawn, and it certainly isn't something that's going to help non fans want to enjoy it as sport.
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I think it is important to remember though that every sport has a fan base that questions its legitimacy. The problem we have with our sport is that there is a "just want to see good racing" contingent without a built in bias who questions the legitimacy. If you aren't bitching because your guy didn't win, you are, in effect, calling into question the legitimacy of the event IMO. With all due respect to that portion of our fan base, I don't understand how once watching a sporting event without some sort of bias.
 
jaqua19 said:
I think the championship is legitimate. It always is. I also prefer some kind of playoff/Chase to full season.

But this format absolutely isn't it. The first round doesn't even feel special because we all know that drivers who shouldn't be there are getting bounced.

The point of a chase, or a playoff run, is for that 11th place driver you are talking about to go on a run, make a push, or at least have a strong points finish.

Now, he may have a run that would have put him 8th in full season points, 3rd in chase points, and he's gonna finish no better than 17th for having a legit top 7 kind of season ultimately.

Win and your in, elimination is stupid. It's just stupid.
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Yeah, I hear you, but I don't completely agree with regard to the first round. As I noted in the other post about the sport's legitimacy, the perspective of the fan watching should be taken into consideration. Take me....for example.....I am in vapor lock over the fact that I have two drivers at the bottom the Championship standings, and one of MY best shots starting at the back (haven't heard if it is an engine issue which adds to the suspense) who have qualified ****** like usual for these tracks and MY OEM. This day could really go sideways for me. Do I like it? No. Is this why I come to the sport the way I do? Hell yes. With Watkins Glen looming and Denny starting at the back on a track that does not draft like Daytona or Dega......WE need a clutch race from him right now.
 
Blaze said:
But aren’t Game 7 moments more entertaining when they happen naturally? It would be way more special if we went into the final race with a close battle from a full season, over an artificial one.
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As an Edwards fan, it sucks enough that 2011 went the way that it did, but now, we're trying to artificially recreate it lol.

I still prefer the old chase to any format
 
Revman said:
Yeah, I hear you, but I don't completely agree with regard to the first round. As I noted in the other post about the sport's legitimacy, the perspective of the fan watching should be taken into consideration. Take me....for example.....I am in vapor lock over the fact that I have two drivers at the bottom the Championship standings, and one of MY best shots starting at the back (haven't heard if it is an engine issue which adds to the suspense) who have qualified ****** like usual for these tracks and MY OEM. This day could really go sideways for me. Do I like it? No. Is this why I come to the sport the way I do? Hell yes. With Watkins Glen looming and Denny starting at the back on a track that does not draft like Daytona or Dega......WE need a clutch race from him right now.
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Yeah I just don't know. I totally get your perspective. You're just taking it for what it is, and eating up the entertainment and drama that comes with it. I do think it's valid and entertaining.

I also do think a form of playoffs belong in NASCAR. I think a lot of fans would be surprised at how put off the casual fanbase would be by a full season points format. At this point, it's like the Rings of Power show. Most of the general audience tolerates it, and enjoys it for all of its flaws. It's just the die hard Toilken fans, the loud vocal minority, who loath the show deviating from source material.

The playoffs are here to stay and a full season format isn't the holy grail. NASCAR is still the biggest motorsport in the country, no one really cares about IndyCar unless you're a racing fan, and F1's boost from Netflix has already died down, especially with such an awful racing product.

Kids who grew up with social media are getting older and most sports fans don't have the attention span to appreciate a full season format. I'd bet solid money that a full season format MAY boost ratings for the dinosaurs, but it'll then crash harder than ever when the new fans decide that they aren't interested in watching week to week because the championship battle is over.

If it were up to me, I think the perfect system would be as follows:

1. Points are scored the way they are throughout the regular season. Stage wins and all.

2. Stage cautions are eliminated, but stage points are still scored.

3. Drivers still get their 5 playoff points for winning a race, 1 playoff point for winning a stage, and 2 playoff points for leading the most laps!

4. 12 drivers make the playoffs. Not 16. The top 10 in regular season points make it. Then we get two wildcard spots. Win and your in applies to spot 11/12. And if it matters, points do to.

5. Points are reset to start race 27, with the additional playoff points for where they finish the regular season stacking like they do today.

6. 10 races, 12 drivers, ZERO eliminations. It's now just a 10 race season. Except playoff points now stack onto race points as "bonus" points. So stage points and race finish points work the way they do, however instead, what would typically be "playoff points" now become additional bonus points. 1 bonus point for winning a stage, 2 bonus points for leading the most laps, 5 for winning. So, in the regular season, max points are 60 - Winning both stages and the race. With this format, that driver gets their 60 points, but they also get the 5 points for winning, 2 points for the two stage wins, and 2 points for leading rhe most laps. 69 max points.


I think this is the best of all worlds and I don't think we'd get a more legitimate champion. Regular season champion will have a points advantage, but it isn't insurmountable
 
jaqua19 said:
Like competitive, judges, scoring it like boxing?
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No. Like I wrote, it was intentionally chaotic and messy. "Anything can happen in the WWE" became the deus ex machina statement to justify why it was the way it was. Wrestling succeeds when it at least attempts to stick to a narrative foundation, which is how stories (hint about journalism: the word "stories" tells you what it is intended to do!) in real sports are communicated, except that wrestling (because it is fixed/booked/fake/rigged/scripted/whatever you want to call it) can at least try to guarantee the payoff the fans want. That's how it historically makes money. It only stopped being that because it was monopolized by a crazy racist sexpest billionaire who realized he could make enormous sums of money from TV carriage contracts regardless of what he did as long as he did plenty of marketing tie-ins and sold nostalgia to marks...err...fans.
 
Revman said:
With all of this being said, is anybody as excited as I am for the start of all of this? Honest question.....Do the Playoffs ruin the season for some? Do you feel that strongly about this? For me, it's a game changer. Just like the post season in other sports, this feel different starting Sunday. Love this. So jacked.
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I'm excited to see the he races but the playoffs are not exciting for me. Other than the awful “every point matters” on the broadcast they playoffs don’t bother me either as I put them on ignore! I don’t acknowledge them. Works for me 😀
 
AlTerego said:
I'm excited to see the he races but the playoffs are not exciting for me. Other than the awful “every point matters” on the broadcast they playoffs don’t bother me either as I put them on ignore! I don’t acknowledge them. Works for me 😀
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It has come to this for many of us. The gerbil broadcasts are all negative. They focus on the mistakes and spend most of their time doing that. It's unbalanced.
 
Hotrod said:
I was a young kid and can remember the season champion being wrapped up
with 2 or 3 races to go. Thats when I quit watching for the year. I seem to recall
some of the teams using the rest of the season to test for next year.

I like game 7's. Entertainment value is higher.
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It never bothered me when a driver had the season wrapped up before Atlanta. Of course it never bothered me when a race was won under yellow or the leader had 5 laps on the 2nd place car either.
 
jaqua19 said:
I'd bet solid money that a full season format MAY boost ratings for the dinosaurs, but it'll then crash harder than ever when the new fans decide that they aren't interested in watching week to week because the championship battle is over.
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I must be the only one who will watch a race as a standalone event, regardless of whether or not it affects a championship. A good race is a good race whether or not a title is on the line. Those guys still want to win.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
I must be the only one who will watch a race as a standalone event, regardless of whether or not it affects a championship. A good race is a good race whether or not a title is on the line. Those guys still want to win.
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Yeah I think that is nonsense. The Nascar fanbase is pretty hard core. They are there to watch a race and watch it until the end. I'm going to do my best to enjoy these last ten races nonsense and all.
I wonder if this latest playoff format is trying to attract the daytime game show people. :cuckoo:
 
Charlie Spencer said:
I must be the only one who will watch a race as a standalone event, regardless of whether or not it affects a championship. A good race is a good race whether or not a title is on the line. Those guys still want to win.
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Some of the finales where the champion was already decided were more memorable than any edition of the Phoenix Bowl, like the Gordon and Gordon battle at NHMS in 2001 and Bobby Labonte stealing his last career win away from Bill Elliott at Homestead in 2003.
 
jaqua19 said:
Professional wrestling is athletic performance art / athletic theater.

There's nothing sport about it whatsoever. It's fiction. It's staged theater. People like it. That's fine. But NASCAR should not have any parallels with something like that.
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Personally I think "Overtime" is staged theater knowing there is a good chance of race ending carnage.
 
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