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NASCAR is hoping that AI can help fix one of its most pressing issues amid recent fan backlash. NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell recently told Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal that the series is hoping generative AI can produce a playoff format that will help quell fan outrage.
This past season, Team Penske star Joey Logano won his third NASCAR Cup Series championship thanks to a remarkable playoff run. But fans of the series claimed that the championship was undeserved due to Logano’s underwhelming regular season performance, a contention that Logano himself harshly rejects.
In the wake of that backlash, NASCAR has begun exploring alternative formats.
.@NASCAR is evaluating how it can use generative AI for competition matters such as asking a model how playoff format changes could impact the sport, per COO Steve O’Donnell.
🗨: “How that applies to our formats of the future, I think AI can play a really big role in that.” pic.twitter.com/wbNituf4tm
— Adam Stern (@A_S12) December 27, 2024
“Just around racing, the strategy that now goes into a race, how that applies to our formats of the future. I think AI can play a really big role in that,” O’Donnell said.
“When we created even the stages or playoff format, you did that with the best data you had and best minds you had, but now being able to plug in and work with AI in terms of ‘OK, if you tweak the playoffs this way, what should we be watching out for’ or ‘How could that affect the sport?’
“There’s so much data and technology out there that you can now now into a model. I think it’s going to be very helpful in looking at some predictive analysis of where the sport can go in the future and then there’s the whole business side of things too.”
If that seems like a lot of words to say nothing to you, you’re not alone. Fans were critical of O’Donnell’s statement, noting that the series could simply ask fans what they feel is best. But doing just that is what got us to where we are today. The series changed to a playoff format in 2004 after fans complained about Matt Kenseth winning the Cup Series championship in 2003 despite winning only one race.
There may well be an argument for generative AI helping to tweak the series format. But the people who run the sport could get to the exact same result if it simply responded to fans the way it once did.