“Probably not”: Steve Phelps delivers his take on achieving “sell-out” fate in 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season

NASCAR President Steve Phelps expects every single race of the upcoming season to sell out. He also spoke about the chances of the same happening.

The 2025 Busch Light Clash at the iconic Bowman Gray stadium and the inaugural regular season race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City on June 15 are the two events that Phelps thinks will sell out completely, and thus add to the double-digit sellout figure.

Speaking of which, during a "State of the Sport" pre-race media availability Friday morning at Phoenix Raceway, Phelps said:

“If you think about 2025, we have a race at Bowman Gray which will be a sellout. You have a race in Mexico City which I believe will be a sellout to add to the double-digit sell-outs that we had this year.” (3:52)

Ideally, every race should sell out. However, that’s something that the sport is currently building towards.

“Would we like to sell out every race? We would. Is that feasible for 2025? Probably not, but we'll keep digging at it,” Steve Phelps added.

In his opinion, this coming weekend’s championship race at Phoenix Raceway (on November 10th) is also going to sell out completely. Fans can now visit www.phoenixraceway.com and purchase their tickets to this year’s ultimate showdown.

For the fans who prefer watching it on television, NBC Sports will provide live coverage of the coveted race from 3 PM ET onwards. Besides, radio updates will be available on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

“They are ahead of us”- Steve Phelps hopeful about “best days of NASCAR” coming soon

Several races were marred by inclement weather conditions this year, including the Coca-Cola 600 and the Daytona 500. But that did not affect the aggregate television ratings or the attendance for the crown jewel races. This led Phelps to believe that the best days of the sport are yet to come.

“I’ve said this at every single one of these States of the Sport,” Phelps said. “This is my seventh year saying this, and I will say it this year, next year and the following years, which is: The best days of NASCAR are not behind us. They are ahead of us, and I believe that to be true.”

Regardless of the weather, Phelps said that the ratings have hit a boom for this year’s Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, and the second running of the road course race at the Chicago street circuit.

“We delayed the start of the (Daytona 500) a full day, and we took a ratings bath. So, we were down minus-27. Then we had a rain-shortened race at the Coca-Cola 600, a rain-interrupted event at the Chicago Street Race, so three of your biggest races… down double digits,” Steve Phelps added.

Here is the full schedule for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. However, recent reports have suggested that the playoff format might get tweaked a little next year.