As NASCAR spends part of this offseason evaluating its championship format, and the potential need to make tweaks, artificial intelligence will be part of that process according to chief operating officer Steve O’Donnell.
“I would say 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 to Sports Business Journal. “When we created even the stages or playoff format [years ago], 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 throw 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.”
But at the same time, that doesn’t mean human input will not continue to be a meaningful factor as well.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t put a percentage on it,” O’Donnell said earlier this month, also via Sports Business Journal. “What I would say is that we’ll have an industry working group that will take a look and is already taking a look at the playoffs. The great thing about our system is that this evolved through discussions with the industry — everyone had input to the product and the format that you see today and that will continue.
“We’ll look at different ideas, and if we can make tweaks to enhance it, we certainly will do that, but we’re not going to do it unless we feel like it’s in the best interest of the sport and really drives even more engagement from our fans.”
As O’Donnell indicated at the end of the season, don’t expect the playoff era of NASCAR racing to end anytime soon either.
“Playoffs, we’re not going to go away from playoffs,” O’Donnell said. “We read fans [reactions] and everything. So, we will as we always do, absolutely look at what form the playoffs take in the offseason.
“You always learn. But playoffs in and of itself, you cannot argue with the quality of racing that the playoffs have delivered. You can talk about the format and if we do some different things. But absolutely we’re going to stick with it.”
