NASCAR to Feature In-Season Tournament in 2025

NASCAR will have a five-race stretch of the 2025 Cup season serve as an in-season, bracket-style tournament with a $1 million dollar prize as part of its new seven-year media rights deal, beginning with a night event at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Three races that will air on Amazon Prime Video will set the seeding for a tournament of five races airing on TNT as NASCAR tries a new concept that was used by the NBA this season and comes on the heels of other in-season tournament events from the WNBA and National Women’s Soccer League.

“With the launch of our new media rights partnerships in 2025, we were excited to partner with Prime Video and TNT Sports to collaborate on fan engagement concepts that drive story lines in our sport and innovation from a production perspective,” said Brian Herbst, NASCAR senior vice president of media and productions. “Having head-to-head driver matchups for each one of TNT’s NASCAR Cup Series races will add a compelling fan engagement element across media platforms like TNT, Bleacher Report, House of Highlights and NASCAR digital platforms.”

All drivers are eligible for the seeding races and the top 32 drivers from those events will qualify for the in-season tournament. Seeding will be based on best finish in the three Prime Video races with tiebreakers determined by next-best finish, followed by season points position. Drivers in the in-season tournament will compete head-to-head with the higher finishing driver advancing over five rounds.

“Next year, having $1 million on the line, that’s for sure going to be a goal before the season starts and something that you and your team strategize around and all that,” Kyle Larson said. “I look forward to it. The summer months get stale. Not boring, but it just gets repetitive. You lose some excitement.”

Atlanta, which has produced some of NASCAR’s most thrilling races since the track was redesigned with higher banking, gets the honor of hosting the first tournament race. The remainder of the 36-race schedule will be announced later.

“We’ve heard our fans loud and clear,” Atlanta Motor Speedway President Brandon Hutchison said. “We know that they wanted the night race back. We were excited to even be able to consider being able to give that to them. Then with TNT — a hometown broadcast partner, home track, the first season of the in-season bracket tournament, the first time that’s ever been held in NASCAR — we feel that … June 28, 2025, is going to be a very exciting time to be at Atlanta Motor Speedway.”

As part of the media rights deal, Prime Video and TNT will split a series of 10 midseason Cup races. Amazon and TNT are part of the new media deal along with Fox Sports and NBC Sports in providing live coverage of all 38 Cup Series races beginning in 2025 and running through 2031.

“We’re excited to be part of Nascar’s first in-season tournament next season,” said Charlie Neiman, head of sports partnerships, Prime Video. “This tournament will showcase the league’s ability to drive innovation and engage fans with increased competition during a key part of the NASCAR schedule.”