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NASCAR and its fans may have to get used to the season ending later in November as a rival sports league looks to expand its schedule. The executive director of the NFL Player’s Association (NFLPA), Lloyd Howell, revealed to the Washington Post that the NFL and the NFLPA have discussed an 18-game regular season at a “High level.” What does this mean for NASCAR?
To understand how this affects NASCAR, we must first consider how it would all work. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell expressed back in March that he wants to add an 18th regular-season game while taking away a preseason game. He specifically mentioned that he would push the Super Bowl one week later to President’s Day weekend, the current weekend of the Daytona 500.
However, that’s only Goodell’s opinion, and he has to convince the NFLPA to agree. The NFL and NFLPA currently have a collective bargaining agreement through 2030, making it more difficult, albeit not impossible for a change to occur before then.
Numerous NFL players have said that should the season expand, they want to add an extra bye week, expanding the regular season from the current 18 weeks to 20 weeks.
In that instance, does the NFL move the Kickoff week up a week to the first weekend of September to ensure the Super Bowl occurs on President’s Day? Does the NFL eliminate the off-week between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl? Do they move the Super Bowl back a week further to the last weekend of February? Any of these changes could directly affect NASCAR.
As it currently works, NASCAR has a nice place on the sports calendar. While the NFL season winds down, NASCAR eases its’ way in with an exhibition race the week before the Super Bowl and the sport’s biggest race the week following the Super Bowl.
The end of the NFL season also gives NASCAR a great promotion opportunity. The Daytona 500 broadcaster, Fox, broadcasts the NFL Playoffs yearly through the Conference Championship Games and the Super Bowl every four years. This promotion probably explains why early-season NASCAR races tend to perform well in the TV ratings.
With Fox’s interest in the NFL and the NFL’s overall cultural influence, it’s not in NASCAR’s best interest to compete against it at that time of year. This means that if the Super Bowl moves back, so will the start of the NASCAR season.
NASCAR has moved the Daytona 500 back before. From 2012 through 2017, the Daytona 500 was held on the last weekend of February, not President’s Day weekend. However, this would also move the end of the season back, as those involved with NASCAR probably don’t want 37 consecutive weeks of competition.
If the NFL schedule is pushed back two weeks, NASCAR will probably have to push everything back unless they want the Daytona 500 the week before the Super Bowl. A week off would kill any momentum the Daytona 500 gave.
This could push NASCAR into the fall, potentially to the third week of November. This was when the NASCAR season ended from 2002 through 2019.
Either way, NASCAR will have to adjust to the NFL. The NFL has exponentially more power in the sports landscape, and, like it or not, NASCAR has to work around it.
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