I can't believe what I am reading.
@StandOnIt is 100% correct.
It would be a more difficult topic to grapple with if so much competitive integrity had been lost (it has) but dividing the NASCAR calendar into regular and post-season were a runaway commercial success. It is not. Roughly two decades of some version of it and one decade of multiple rounds and winner-take-all finales have provided a meaningful boost to exactly one annual event: the finale itself. Even that has surely not grown as envisioned, as the cheap theatrics of it wear off quickly.
Otherwise, viewership still mostly surges and wanes based on two factors: 1) the venue the race is at, and 2) what time of year the race is held. Interest slowly falls throughout the season and plummet during football season. Nothing Brian France grafted onto NASCAR because he liked football and basketball better has or will ever reverse those trends.
Yes, there are now a generation of fans that know of nothing else. There are a cadre of journalists who prefer to count points and chart cutoff lines more than any other form of coverage. There is a TV partner that would be difficult to convince now that the genie is long out of the bottle. These are excuses. They don't change that it was all a mistake, and that playoffs and racing are oil and water.