NASCAR president Steve Phelps on the charter deal, the playoff format and more

When Steve Phelps sat down with The Athletic a year ago for an in-depth interview, NASCAR’s president was admittedly tired. A 2023 season filled with contentious contract negotiations that would shape NASCAR’s foreseeable future weighed heavily on Phelps, and he was feeling it.

Flash forward 12 months and Phelps is in a decidedly different mood as he talks about the just-completed 2024 season. That sense of optimism stems from a highly competitive season that saw television ratings increase, 18 different drivers win at least one of 36 points races, and a compelling championship playoff that featured assorted twists and turns culminating with Joey Logano winning a third Cup Series title in Cinderella-esque fashion.

Phelps spoke to The Athletic again after this season’s end to discuss rising ratings; potential tweaks to a playoff format that’s come under fire; the welcoming of new media partners Amazon, Warner Bros. and the CW Network (in addition to Fox and NBC returning); and the direction the sport is headed

(Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

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When you look back on the 2024 season, what are some of the things that come to mind for you?

I think our racing produced some extraordinary moments — we got three of the top seven closest finishes in NASCAR (history); just when you didn’t think it’d be any closer. I think that’s really a testament to how hard our competition guys have worked with our race teams, with our (manufacturers). We talk a lot about collaboration and having 18 different winners from 10 organizations, and that speaks volumes to what is coming out of that collaboration and working together and from that Next Gen car.

To me, always, always it is about the racing as that is so important. And I know this is not the sport that they say this, but “Any given Sunday,” right? I think that’s what we’ve seen.

Considering the improvements made to the racing on short tracks — the fall Martinsville race, outside of the manipulation, was a very good race — and the high quality of racing on intermediate tracks, how would you rate the overall quality of racing?

I think that inarguably this is the best racing we’ve ever had. Statistically and the eye test and just kind of looking at a high level, I think that’s a true statement. The great news about our guys is they never rest on what they’ve done, they’re always pushing to tweak to make it better. And speaking of the short track package, a lot of that is the changes to the tire that Goodyear made, which has made a difference. Obviously, (races on) intermediates have been off the charts since this Next Gen car came on the scene in 2022, and I just think there’s going to be a continuing to iterate on it.

Is there a moment that you look back on this year that you’re most proud of?

The close finishes, that was really cool. The continued schedule innovation, I think our fans have come to expect that, and you’ll see that again in ’25. It’s pretty cool that 23XI competed for a championship so soon in their life cycle of being a race team. And one of the things I’m most proud of is, if you look at the (TV) ratings, we started off minus-27 (percent) and somehow we finished in the positive numbers from a viewership standpoint. I think that is a testament for the strength of the fan base and where the sport is and the popularity of the sport.

Conversely, is there a call or decision that happened during the course of the year that you look back on and “I wish we could have a do-over on that?”

My answer to that is there are no such things as do-overs. Are there specific things that we always try to fine-tune and look at either during the season and make changes as necessary, or when the season ends? Yeah.

For example, we’re looking at the damaged vehicle policy. Our guys looking back, I think they would tell you, “Hey, there’s nothing that we did that wasn’t consistent with what the rules (say) that we should be doing.” There might have been some confusion relative to the competitors of what was happening, but I don’t think our guys felt that they got any of that wrong. With that said, that’s something we’ll look at and potentially tweak heading into ’25.

Why do you think that the playoff format had such criticism this year compared to years past?

There are a number of factors there. I think you have drivers that really performed well in the playoffs, and you had drivers that didn’t and may have performed better in the regular season. But in that Round of 8, specifically, you had drivers that didn’t perform, and you had four drivers who did — three of them won races and one that pointed their way through. I would suggest based on the format, those four drivers truly deserve to be there. Win-and-your-in is really what we heard from fans, and that’s what the industry came up with when they came up with this format (prior to the 2014 season). And if you’re going to get four guys who are not the four highest statistical leaders, then you’re probably going to have some criticism.

Joey (Logano, this year’s champion) performed. He went to Vegas and won, and then went to Phoenix and won. So to me, he’s a deserving champion. He ran the gauntlet of a very difficult, and arguably the most difficult playoffs in all sports. And he is a deserving champion because of that.

I think there are other components of that, too — popularity of drivers. Just consider the Final Four at the cup level. You’ve got a guy (Logano) who’s now a three-time champion, a guy (Ryan Blaney) who if he had won, would have been a two-time champion, and then two of the most talented young drivers in the garage — Tyler Reddick, the regular-season champion, and William Byron, who just continues to get better. And both those guys are most likely going to be future champions themselves.

Again, I’ll stand by the format because the format also gave us phenomenal racing. I don’t know how you’d suggest that it was anything other than it was just phenomenal. We had good attendance, (TV) ratings were plus-six. I would call our playoffs in all three national series successful.

During the “State of the Sport” address last month, you and (NASCAR COO) Steve O’Donnell alluded that NASCAR would look at some tweets or adjustments to the playoff format for 2025. Where does that stand, and do you anticipate any changes to the format?

We are going to look at it, and that will be an industry-wide decision, just like the existing format is. So we’ll get a cross-functional team consisting of drivers, teams, NASCAR folks and sit in a room and see if there’s something better. Because for everyone that wants to make a change, you have some on the other side that doesn’t want to make a change. And I heard that all last weekend (during the NASCAR awards ceremony), “Please don’t change the format, the playoff system works really well.” And others were like, “Please change the playoff format.” A lot of it is just personal preference, and I think it’s easy to put your own lens on it. What would be good for my driver? Or what is best for my team? Self-interest is a very powerful thing.

With that said, are we going to make a tweak to it? I’m not sure. But, again, it’ll be getting input from a lot of different places and then from there we will make what we believe is the best decision for the sport overall.

How difficult is it to balance entertainment versus sport? Every sport deals with this to varying degrees because you want to have an entertaining product, but you also have a competition. How much is this a struggle for NASCAR as you go through this process?

That’s a really good question. To me, as long as you don’t cross the line where it’s just not authentic and it’s gimmicky — and that line is probably different for everyone. With that said, we are about entertainment, and we need to entertain our race fans. We need to have compelling racing and a compelling product on the racetrack. That’s what they’ve come to expect from us, and that’s what they’re going to get moving forward. So again, whether there’s a tweak to it or a wholesale change or nothing, we’ll make sure that we are looking through that lens of entertainment versus making sure we are being authentic and true to who we are as a sport.

Last year when we spoke at this time, you talked about having a lot of sleepless nights thinking about all of the various things on your plate. What’s keeping you awake now? Are you still having those sleepless nights?

I am actually not. I’m really encouraged by the direction that the sport is going. I think we are well positioned as we get into ’25 with new media partners, a great product on the racetrack, some really good storylines, and overall a healthy sport. So to me, I’m sleeping very soundly.

Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t have things to do. We’ve got lots to do and there are lots of opportunities for us to grow, both domestically and internationally.

I understand you can’t talk about the federal lawsuit, but I am curious what’s it been like for you to get to that point where you were able to get 13 to 15 teams to sign the charter agreement but not get the deal completely completed?

I look at two things. We got a lot of dialouge and a lot of negotiation with our race teams, and I think there are things in this charter agreement that starts in ’25 that those 32 charters held by 13 teams, that there are things in there they really like and there’s some things in there that they don’t like, or they don’t like as well. And you could say the same thing about our negotiation; there are things about the charter that we really like, and there are some things that we don’t. With that said, that’s a negotiation, and that’s exactly what we did: We negotiated in good faith with our race teams to find a balance that was going to help the sport move forward positively. And I think that’s what the charters do. I think the charter system is a good thing for NASCAR and the growth of this sport.

I think if you’re going to go from the top of the grid to the back of the grid, this is the most competitive that NASCAR has ever been. It just is. Again, look at the number of winners. Look at cars that typically have not been competing. Take a kid like Carson Hocevar, who ran really well at many, many, many races this year, particularly down the stretch. And that’s with a Spire Motorsports team that historically has not performed with top 10s or competing for top fives. That’s just a great success story, and I think that’s what this system allows.

We’re going to have charters. We are wed to the charter system. And it makes sense because it creates healthy teams. Overall, as we think about 2024 and these 13 teams, we immediately went out and had discussions with every single team about how we’re going to collaborate together. To me, that’s the start of something new and special that I believe is going to work. And when I mean work, I mean it’s going to work for the race teams because it’ll make them more profitable, it’ll help them be more marketable, and because of those things, it’s going to help the sport grow. I’m super bullish on that.

Again, we’d like all 36 charters to be signed, of course we would. No one likes to be in litigation, but that’s where we are. We’re defending ourselves vigorously.

Looking at it next year, there are a lot of new elements with Bowman Gray (Stadium, the new host of the exhibition Clash race) and Mexico City being added and new TV partners coming in, is there one thing among these that you’re most looking forward to?

Bowman Gray and Mexico City are two really cool things. One is a nod to the history of the sport in Bowman Gray, and one that is a nod to the future of the sport, which is racing outside of our borders and doing things in front of fans like we have at the Chicago Street Race and the Clash at the Coliseum. The race in Mexico City will bring new eyeballs, strong television ratings and all those things are good, and we’ll continue to see that in ’26 and beyond.

If I had to point to one single thing, I think it is the addition of our three new media partners to the two outstanding media partners that we have at Fox and NBC. I think that the amount of promotion that is going to exist because of these five media partners is unlike anything that we’ve seen.

Where do you see NASCAR three, four, five years down the road?

We’re going to continue to have schedule innovation, so I’m just going to park that over there. I do think there are some real opportunities for us internationally that I think we (are) kind of just scratching the surface on. I’m excited about what that could mean for us as you look years down the line.

There are lots of different things that we will do, and certainly content is going to play a role. AI and what we’re doing from a data standpoint with our data garage, and potentially looking at doing things with our race teams. On the data front, I would say continued innovation in gaming and kind of the gamification of NASCAR. We’ve got all kinds of things right now, six or seven different platforms that’s going to continue because with everything, including the content, if we meet that potential race fan where they are, you have an opportunity for them to be able to come onto the path to NASCAR nation.

Then for those that are currently fans, I think there’s opportunities for us to meet them where they are, too, just to nurture their fandom and have them continue towards being avid fans. If we do it right, and I believe we’re going to, we’re going to continue to gain new fans and we’re going to continue to have our existing fans be pleased with the direction that the sport is going in so they’ll want to attend more races, watch and participate in some fashion. I think that’s really, really important for our overall success as you think three, five and 10 years down the line.

(Top photo of Steve Phelps at this year’s championship race: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)