Amidst the larger conversation about NASCAR’s current championship format, 2023 Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney opened up about fans calling his lone NASCAR Cup Series Championship a “Mickey Mouse” championship.
🏆 "It gets under my skin a little bit when they're like you guys didn't deserve that championship."
Ryan @Blaney weighs in on people calling championships in this playoff format "Mickey Mouse".
Full Hour–> https://t.co/MKhd9eLpQA pic.twitter.com/UZGAgjis8b— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) July 23, 2025
Since Joey Logano’s improbable championship win last fall, NASCAR fans have fanned the flames of dissatisfaction with NASCAR’s current championship format. Some even go as far as to discredit some drivers who have won championships under the playoff format, such as Ryan Blaney, who, in 2023, won the title despite a 14.1 average finish.
During a recent interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Blaney said that it bothers him when his championship is referred to as a “Mickey Mouse” Championship, a term adopted by sports fans to describe a championship won under “gimmicky” rules.
While some fans dislike the playoff format, as he puts it, all drivers still have a fair shake to win the title. “Everyone has the same opportunity as, you know, the guy who won it.”
When NASCAR fans often speak out against the current championship format, they list the drivers who would have won the title under the old Winston Cup or full-season championship format. Despite discrepancies on how drivers race with the current system, stage racing in particular, there are communities in NASCAR dedicated to tracking the old points system throughout the season.
Blaney does not see this argument as valid, saying, “This isn’t the full season points. Everyone always talks about, ‘Oh, you know, this guy, he would have won the full season points.’ Well, that’s great, but we haven’t used that format in 20 years.”
To those who say Blaney did not deserve his championship, he points to the run his team had during the playoffs that season.
“I look at our championship as, like, we had a good year, and we even had a better playoffs than everybody else. And we rose to the occasion when we needed to, and we dug in, and we were the best car during the playoffs and had some big wins and was able to get the championship” — Ryan Blaney on his 2023 Championship
During those playoffs, his performance included six top tens, four top fives, two wins, and an average finish of 9.5 through the ten playoff races.
Though Blaney is proud and feels deserving of his title, the 31-year-old went on to say that he thinks the format is by no means perfect.
“Would I like to see the playoffs change a little bit?” Blaney said. “Yes, I would. I’m not a massive fan of the one-race-takes-all type of deal. I think you have to have at least the handful of races in there, to the end, where there’s a little bit of consistency, which consistency in this playoff format does matter.”
This is a similar complaint many fans have had with NASCAR’s current round-based playoff, which consists of three races in the first three rounds and a winner-takes-all final for the championship. To fix this, some fans have suggested scrapping rounds and eliminations or even inverting the system with a one-race ‘play-in’ and three rounds of three races.
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