“It Cost Them Money” – Denny Hamlin Exposes NASCAR’s Greed as His Idea to Increase Viewership Was Shot Down

In a sport filled with big thinkers and innovators, the name Denny Hamlin usually falls far from that list in the eyes of many fans. Although the ‘Deliverminator’ is notorious for his no-nonsense attitude off the track and no-regrets driving style on it, some of his competition structure ideas might just change the stand of many on Hamlin’s role in the sport.

A few months ago, the NASCAR community was sent into a frenzy by Denny Hamlin’s suggestion of a single-elimination tournament with the driver head-to-heads deciding the outcome of each round. Whilst the idea quickly gained traction on social media, Hamlin later revealed that it seemed to be unlikely the series would be set into motion officially. But what could stop NASCAR from giving the fans what they have been craving for ever since summer?

Denny Hamlin reveals why his grand idea failed to see the light of day

In the latest episode of the Dale Jr Download, the two DirtyMo Media hosts sat down to reflect on Hamlin’s first year with Actions Detrimental and how things have been overall. This is when Hamlin’s bracket challenge intrigued Dale Earnhardt Jr who asked, “So wait, you came up with a bracket challenge right? It was kind of like a podcast social media thing. How many people signed up?”

This prompted Denny Hamlin to reveal just how popular the show had been with the fans – an astounding 79,000 people had signed up, just through the DirtyMo Media channels! Earnhardt Jr also joined in to share just how unprepared the website was for traffic of such caliber and acknowledge the difficulties fans faced. He shared, “And we had some rickety old website because we didn’t think 79,000 people would sign up! And you know, you couldn’t search your – it’s tough. You didn’t know how well you did unless you were in the first place.”

But even all the fanfare wasn’t enough to please the NASCAR officials, and Denny Hamlin revealed that the teams had expressed their interest, but its future was still up in the air, due to a lot of doubts regarding the prize pool. He further shared, “I think it’s important for our sport and I stand by the need to take this and I told them, because they said, ‘Listen, we’re afraid we gonna get left at the doorstep here if you keep going with this, and we’re not a part of it.”

When Earnhardt Jr. asked Hamlin point-blank why the corporates didn’t want to be a part of his grand plan, he had one simple answer: “It cost them money.” When it wasn’t enough to satisfy Earnhardt Jr, Hamlin revealed he wanted the winner to be paid $3 million, which would make the challenge a worthwhile investment for fans and competitors both. But Earnhardt Jr. felt this was a lot of money. Hamlin’s response?

The man hell-bent on making the bracket challenge a reality turned his attention to NASCAR’s lucrative new media rights deal, “7.7 billion dollars. Really? So what do you think it will return to the audience that will make the next TV deal? Okay let’s say they do it for the next seven years and it costs them three million dollars, that’s 21 million dollars. You don’t think it will bump up the TV ratings through those summer months enough to up the average of viewers to then get a return on that 21 million?”

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It’s safe to say Denny Hamlin didn’t pull any punches against the officials on their stance either. While Hamlin feels that the pot is big enough to allow for such races and expects a reasonable return on investment, there’s still some work to be done on the prize distribution. All things aside, even if Hamlin manages to lay out everything on the table, what’s in it for the Deliverminator if everything goes to the winner?

How would Hamlin benefit from his tournament idea?

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While Dale Earnhardt Jr and Denny Hanlin believe the prospect would be worth the investment for NASCAR if they were to find a sponsor, Hamlin still has to hash out the specifics of how the pot will be distributed. He shared, “I don’t know. Listen, call it whatever you wanna do. $2 or $3 million to the winner. You make it past a certain round you start getting paid. It’s fifty grand, then a hundred grand if you make it to the semis.”

Speaking about keeping anything for himself, Hamlin felt the money would be better utilized by the sport on itself than if he were to take a direct cut. But he had a plan for reaping the benefits of his idea. “It would be good for the sport, and I’ll get a return down the road. My race team would get, you know, the return would be, we’re sharing the TV revenue, we’ll just get a share of this and the other that will be more for the sponsors to talk about. TV brings narratives and subjects to talk about. Like, ‘Hey! Look at this battle for the 17th! It may not be important, but in this bracket it is! And look how hard they’re racing for seventeenth!’”

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Whilst Denny Hamlin believes NASCAR is reluctant to shell out cash for his brilliant idea, we will most likely have to wait until the new media rights deal kicks off to see any actual progress toward the driver face-off type competition being held officially, that too with a $3 million prize.