NASCAR takes a complex chance that points changes will be attractive for fans

Out with the abacus and in with the TI-86.

Six years and thousands fewer fans after touting the simplicity of its new points system, NASCAR did a 180 on Monday with its new points format. The goal of the changes, which award bonus points to drivers who win segments within races, is to make the racing product more palatable to both fans watching on television and at the track.

With each race divided up into three segments separated by caution flags, fans will have guaranteed opportunities to check out from race proceedings for a few minutes just like other major sports do at the end of innings or quarters.

And the end of segments will provide the television networks who pay hundreds of millions to broadcast the sport ample opportunities to air commercials to recoup their large investment in a sport that’s seen television ratings fall over the last few years. Fans don’t like it when they miss a crash or a lead change because television was at a commercial.

The segment format, in theory, greatly reduces the chances of those events happening while ads are playing. That’s a big upside. And so is the remodeling of the bonus point structure.

Since NASCAR introduced its 16-driver elimination-style Chase format — now simply called the “playoffs” — Cup Series drivers received bonus points at the start of the Chase for wins accrued through the first 26 races of the season. But once the Chase field was whittled down to 12 in the second round, those bonus points disappeared. Drivers were on level-pegging at the beginning of the next three rounds.

The lack of bonus point carryover meant a fluke in round 2 could eliminate a driver who was one of the best in the business throughout the first 29 races of the season. Now, with bonus points from the regular season carrying over into the first three rounds of the playoffs, a driver who kicked ass throughout the majority of the season has a cushion in case of a mishap in the Chase.

But while the cushion is a great thing for those of us who hated the randomness that the previous Chase format could provide, the complexity of how it’s built is also a huge downside for the new format. The bonus points drivers accrue throughout the season for the Chase are based not just on race wins any longer. They take into account segment wins as well as a driver’s standing in the points after the first 26 races of the season.

No longer do fans simply have to keep track of how many wins a driver has in the regular season to know his advantage in the Chase. Segment wins — worth one bonus point each — are also part of the equation. And if a driver is in the top 10 of the standings at the conclusion of the regular season, points are added to his Chase total based off where he finishes.

(Click here to for a more detailed explanation of how the points system works.)

It’s not the playoff scoring that got more complicated, either. NASCAR is now awarding points at the end of segments in the middle of races. If a driver wins a segment, he gets 10 points, while the 10th-place driver in a segment gets one point.

Instead of a driver getting 44 points for winning a race and leading a lap like he did in 2016, he could get up to 60 points depending on how he ran in the first two segments of the race. So if Kevin Harvick wins at Phoenix this spring but was third in the first segment and fourth in the second segment, he’ll get 55 points; 40 for the win, eight for finishing third in the first segment and seven for finishing fourth in the second segment.

Yeah, we told you that this wasn’t easy.

With the aforementioned dwindling (and older) fanbase, NASCAR is in dire need of new and younger fans. And while the move to segments is clearly an easy way to make the sport more appealing to those used to stick-and-ball sports, a more complicated scoring system is a harder sell. All stick-and-ball sports abide by the rule that the team with the most points at the end of a game wins. But in the new NASCAR format, a driver with 55 points could easily finish behind one with 47 points at the end of the race.

That could be a tough sell, especially as we see how the points system impacts the way teams race throughout the season.

While you may not agree with the changes NASCAR announced Monday night, it’s hard to argue that sticking with the status quo was the right direction for the near future. With a collection of NASCAR executives, team executives and drivers all selling the changes at a televised press conference, it was clear that this was a well-thought out change and one largely accepted by both those tasked with running the sport and those who compete in it.

Any NASCAR fan will tell you that the best-laid plans have a tendency to go to waste in a sport where truth is always stranger than fiction. The changes the sport is bringing have the potential to make it relevant again and make a 36-race schedule seem like a short jaunt rather than a never-ending roadtrip. Or, like the simple changes of six years ago, they may not provide any jolt at all as the complexity of the scoring system becomes a burden rather than a benefit.

But we’re excited to find out which way it goes and are cautiously optimistic that the format could provide much-needed strategic and tactical intrigue. And if they don’t pan out, well, there’s always another format change on the horizon.

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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