NASCAR’s latest marketing shake-up is sending shockwaves through the garage and beyond. The sport has decided it’s time for drivers to step up their self-promotion game—offering cold, hard cash for those who do it best. Sounds great, right? Well, not everyone’s convinced. Some fans aren’t thrilled, seeing it as yet another way for NASCAR to micromanage its stars, and veteran racer Kevin Harvick has some strong thoughts about it, too.

He’s got praise for parts of the plan, but when it comes to the money on the table? Let’s just say he’s not completely impressed.

Harvick’s take: Good idea, bad payout

Starting in 2025, NASCAR’s rolling out a driver-focused incentive program designed to put its stars front and center. The goal? To make them household names again, just like the old days. The sport is offering up a prize pool that could see the top-performing drivers pocket up to $1 million annually—all for promoting themselves and the sport in creative ways.

The program runs through a new app developed in partnership with INFLCR, a company specializing in brand-building software. The app will act as a marketplace of sorts, listing opportunities for drivers—media appearances, podcast interviews, social media engagement, and so on. Each task earns points, and at the end of the season, those who’ve done the most to sell the sport get the biggest payouts.

NASCAR’s Chief Operating Officer, Steve O’Donnell, believes this is the way forward. “You’re going to see a lot more focus on our individual drivers, and that doesn’t mean just Cup. It’ll include Xfinity, Craftsman Truck, and even grassroots series,” he said. The idea is to unify NASCAR’s messaging and help drivers boost their public profiles while giving fans more access than ever.

But here’s the catch—some see this as NASCAR tightening its grip on how drivers present themselves. The app limits which brands and messages get pushed, effectively filtering out anything that doesn’t align with NASCAR’s corporate vision. Fans have already started pushing back, worrying that this will turn their favorite drivers into PR robots.

Kevin Harvick’s got a unique perspective. As a driver who built a brand during an era when sponsors did most of the heavy lifting, he sees both sides of the argument. He agrees that drivers need to do more to connect with fans.

“The drivers need to be in front of the fans more, right? I think the one thing that we all talk about… is how do we build the driver’s brands? How do we make them rock stars?” Harvick said.

That’s where his praise for the program stops. When it comes to the money, he’s not mincing words. “The number that is attached to this particular program, it’s peanuts compared to the TV deal and the teams and the tracks and NASCAR and what they’re getting,” he said.

And that’s the crux of his frustration. NASCAR’s making big money from TV contracts and sponsorship deals, but when it comes time to reward the drivers—the actual faces of the sport—the cash incentive seems almost symbolic.

“Nobody’s there to see the team owner drive their car… they’re there to see the drivers drive their cars,” Harvick pointed out.

In other words, if NASCAR really wants drivers to be the stars, shouldn’t they be paying them accordingly?

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Then vs. now: Harvick on driver branding

Harvick’s been around long enough to know how different things used to be. In his prime, brands weren’t just throwing a logo on a car and calling it a day. They were actively building their drivers into stars, pushing them in front of cameras, getting them on magazine covers, and making sure fans knew who they were beyond the racetrack. That organic exposure created big personalities and long-lasting fan connections.

Today’s drivers, he says, don’t have that kind of built-in promotional machine. It’s up to them to hustle and create their own brand identities.

Fair enough. He knows firsthand how things have changed since the 2009 financial crisis. Back in his early years, sponsors took an active role in promotion—hosting hospitality events, running commercials, and setting up media opportunities that gave drivers nationwide exposure. That doesn’t happen as much anymore, and Harvick acknowledges that today’s drivers have to do more for themselves.

“Because what’s happened in our sport is, the since 2009 really, the financial crisis and everything that we went through the, the way that businesses do business is different, it used to be when I started you showed up and and we’d have a each sponsor would, you know, have some sort of media gimmick that they would do in New York City or Texas or wherever it was, and they promoted you by bringing people to hospitality. They would have thousands of people at some of the sponsors at hospitality or hundreds. And then you’d have sweets and they have commercials and they’d have all these things. So the sponsor’s really promoted the sport. As I was coming through the sport, to be able to grow it.” said Harvick.

NASCAR’s new program is designed to help with that, but Harvick points out that it’s not exactly revolutionary—other sports have been doing similar things for a while.

“The PGA has a very similar system that they use from a PR standpoint,” he noted.

The big question now is: will it work? Harvick hopes so. He wants to see drivers take advantage of the opportunity and run with it. He’s just not convinced NASCAR’s going far enough to truly reward them for their efforts.

“I hope that this program works out and the guys that are driving the cars go out and try to earn their keep to win the program because they win hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of dollars to be the guy that promotes the sport, the best and themselves,” he said.

The bottom line? NASCAR’s got the right idea—give drivers more control over their personal brands and help them connect with fans. But Harvick and plenty of others aren’t buying the price tag. If NASCAR wants its stars to shine, it might need to start treating them like the main attraction they are.