Two years ago, NASCAR moved toward streamlining its playoffs through a format more traditionally in line with other professional sports. In the third season of the revamped Chase for the Sprint Cup, the branding of the 10-race championship also has moved in a conventional direction with the dispensing of nicknames for its four rounds in favor of traditional labels. Jill Gregory, who was named NASCAR’s chief marketing officer last month, said it’s about simplicity. ‘At the end of the day, we need to make the sport accessible and easy to consume, and sports fans, whether motorsports, NASCAR, stick and ball, they’re familiar with a certain vernacular, and we wanted to keep it simple,’ Gregory, the guest on this week’s NASCAR on NBC podcast, said in the Wednesday episode. ‘Sometimes, you can out-clever yourself.’ When the Chase for the Sprint Cup was reintroduced with elimination rounds and an expanded field in the 2014 season, the first three rounds were known as ‘Challenger,’ ‘Contender’ and ‘Eliminator.’ After using the branded rounds again last season, they were dropped this year. The number of title contenders in each segment is the determinant for the name (i.e., Round of 16, Round of 12, Round of 8 and Championship 4). ‘It’s very easy to understand Round of 16, Round of 8, so we wanted to make it as easy as possible for fans to engage with it,’ Gregory said.(NBC Sports)
