They say a sport is only as strong as its audience, and for NASCAR in 2025, that audience is shrinking. The Cup Series is averaging around 2.52 million viewers per race, down about 13% from 2024’s 2.916 million average. In Kansas, the playoff broadcast drew just 1.49 million viewers, a steep drop from 1.79 million the year before. But viewership is only one symptom of a deeper problem.

When the Charlotte Roval playoff race closed in a meltdown, Ross Chastain crashed into Denny Hamlin in desperation, playoff elimination loomed, and post-race reviews had NASCAR double-check who actually advanced. The spectacle made headlines, but many fans felt lost in the chaos. Combine that with rising critiques of NASCAR’s format, with ‘cheap thrills’ taking precedence over clean, competitive racing. And Denny Hamlin sees exactly why the sport is struggling to balance drama and coherence.

The harsh truth Denny Hamlin sees in NASCAR’s road course fatigue

In his Actions Detrimental podcast, Denny Hamlin was asked by co-host Jared Allen about the star power that gets at the heart of NASCAR’s audience problem. Hamlin replied analytically, saying, “Well, there’s been a million surveys, but the fans have absolutely spoken in their fan council survey that NASCAR sends out that they don’t care about points as much as they care about who wins a particular race. They’ve made that abundantly clear. So it’s the whole argument that some of the shills are making is that, ‘oh, well, you don’t want someone clenching early.’ People will tune out. That is absolutely not true. People are going to tune in to watch Chase and Larson and the popular drivers.” 

NASCAR’s official Fan Council is a formal avenue for fans who prefer the drivers who win. Public polling and forum results frequently yield results that NASCAR reviews for scheduling decisions. However, most of these forums are now centered on the dismissal of the current playoff format, which rewards the driver who wins the Championship 4 finale despite not having achieved good track results throughout the season.

But Allen had a different opinion, stating, “I don’t even think it’s all about just the on-track product. Like, to credit Brad Keselowski’s tweet about needing more star power, right? Like, a lot of these football fans are tuning into their games not because their team’s any good, just because they’re a fan of that team, and on Sunday they watch that team. So you create more star power. On Sunday, Denny Hamlin’s driving, I’m watching Denny Hamlin, even though he’s probably not going to win this particular race, game, right? You’re just tuning in for that.”

Brad Keselowski‘s recent post on X amplified conversations on giving the weekly-winner narrative more prominence. “Clear as day, not enough talk about winning and winners (star power) but covering 15th for known elimination is easier for media storylines. Fans are voting with their eyeballs and it’s definitively a net loss for the sport vs full season format. Now is the time to fix this,” he wrote. The business case is clear: leagues that sell teams or players as brands create habitual viewing, a dynamic NASCAR once enjoyed with household names like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon.

Hamlin, in turn, gave a concrete, on-the-ground example of why timing and broadcast synchronization matter. “Well, I think that the race was three hours and some change, and your moment came in hour 2:59.59. I mean, at the buzzer, right? And so you’re asking a lot for people to wait and sit through that for maybe possibly that one last corner moment, and that’s tough… I watched the end of the race, obviously, because of the last quarter highlight, and it was SVG wins.” he said.

At the 2025 Charlotte Roval, Shane van Gisbergen dominated in a way that produced a decisive, large-margin finish of over 15.160 seconds over Kyle Larson, which paradoxically made the finish less visible to casual TV audiences who tune in late or whose coverage was on different in-race windows. But this time the drivers themselves couldn’t grasp the difference. “When I watched it on TV, it said final lap. And I’m walking, I’m looking at my car in Chastain’s. I’m like, ‘it’s not the final lap.’ And then I look at the other box and it’s like, ‘oh yeah, SVG is on the final lap. We are not.’ And because we were so far apart, I think it was 90 some seconds that we were all behind,” Hamlin continued.

Road courses, including the shortened COTA “National” layout adopted in 2025, create spread-out racing that rewards long-form attention but is tougher to clip into social-native highlight moments. “Even where NBA claims, even acknowledges that they’re mostly a highlight league, most of the views, clicks, things like that come on exciting plays. For us, that’s going to be restarts three-wides. That’s going to be battles for the lead. Those are our highlight clips. You’re just not going to get much of that on a road course,” Hamlin added.

Therefore, road course skills are real and compelling, but translating them into appointment viewing that converts casual viewers into habitual ones remains NASCAR’s strategic challenge. However, after the chaotic Roval finish, Denny Hamlin‘s own on-track actions reignited debates over racing ethics and playoff fate.

Denny Hamlin’s honest take on the Roval mix-up

Joey Logano‘s story at Charlotte Roval felt almost scripted with two playoff runs and two redemptions. After nearly missing the playoffs in 2024 due to a failed inspection for Alex Bowman’s car, Logano once again found a miraculous lifeline in 2025. This time, it was Denny Hamlin’s chaotic involvement that gave him another shot at the title.

For most of the 109-lap race, Logano and Ross Chastain were locked in a tense duel for the final transfer spot. Then came Hamlin, who tangled with Chastain in the closing laps, sending both cars spinning. That moment allowed Logano to slip through, finishing 20th, just 0.167 seconds ahead of Chastain. Hamlin later explained on his podcast, “If I had known he was going to make a desperate move here, then I would have attacked those last two corners differently. It did cost us five spots. I’m not happy about that.”

The aftermath was more than a simple on-track incident; it reshaped the playoff picture. Hamlin, reflecting on how the result affects his Las Vegas qualifying data, added, “I told Chris Gayle before the race, like whatever our strategy is, just make sure we get the best finish we can.” Still, his split-second entanglement at the Roval not only hurt his own run, but it may have handed Logano another golden ticket toward the championship.