NASCAR is not in a good place at the moment. Ratings are falling, the sport is divided over its playoff format, and the excitement on track doesn’t deliver consistently from week to week. And now star driver Denny Hamlin, who just so happens to be in a lawsuit against NASCAR, is sounding the alarm.

Hamlin was in the middle of arguably the most exciting finish of the season on Sunday at Kansas. When chasing the win through the final turn, Hamlin bumped into Bubba Wallace (whose car he co-owns with Michael Jordan) leaving both of them vulnerable to being passed by Chase Elliott, who took home the victory.

On this week’s edition of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin’s comments refusing to apologize to Wallace, and the potential fallout that exists in their owner-driver relationship, certainly bears watching in the weeks ahead as both fight to make it to the next round of the playoffs. But from the meta perspective, his comments about NASCAR’s plunging ratings and their current television deals are even more significant.

This season marks the first year of NASCAR’s deals with Fox, Amazon, TNT, and NBC. The series has more partners than ever before, but Denny Hamlin believes that jumping around so many networks is a problem. And with most of the races on cable, it’s hurting viewership numbers.

If the NFL “owns” Sundays, what does that mean for NASCAR’s growth? 📺 pic.twitter.com/usetcMSu7M

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“Just not good. We signed the deal that we signed. We obviously lost a significant amount of network races in this TV deal,” Hamlin said. “And each one of the TV deals that we’ve signed over the last few years we’ve always just taken the most amount of money. You know what I mean? It’s not been about, ‘what’s going to put us on in the most households.’ You’re asking so much of your fans to just keep chasing you around all these different networks. And I know it’s not that hard, but when the NFL is taking such a lion’s share of those eyes right now, record-setting, every single week, people just, that’s their priority. And if football is not on, then I think that you’ve got a legitimate shot at being the next in line.”

Incredibly, NASCAR has only 8 out of their 36 points races on network television this year. Those include the first three races of the season on Fox and the last three of the season on NBC. The only other NASCAR races on network TV were an April race at Talledega and the final race of the regular season at Daytona on NBC. That’s it. All the other races have been on FS1, Amazon Prime Video, TNT, or USA Network.

Compare that strategy to IndyCar, which went the opposite direction in their deal with Fox Sports where every race was televised on the Fox broadcast network. Now Fox owns a significant chunk of IndyCar, ratings are up, and the sport is on its most solid footing in a number of years.

Television deals to try to get the most number of partners and the biggest paycheck certainly works for the NFL. It’s a strategy that MLB and the NBA are trying to emulate with their new television deals as they balance between network, cable, and streaming. It’s a difficult balance to try to get right. But all of those leagues are committed to having a certain presence on network airwaves that NASCAR has all but abandoned.

Denny Hamlin has always been outspoken in his belief on what is best for the sport. His 23XI team with Michael Jordan is currently locked in an antitrust lawsuit with the NASCAR governing body that could transform the sport and put his own race team on the line.

It’s too late for NASCAR to sign a new television deal. The Amazon Prime Video and TNT races aren’t going anywhere. But if they can at least attempt to get more races on network television in front of bigger audience from Fox and NBC, maybe that could be one piece of the puzzle that the sport needs to put together to start winning back fans.