NASCAR’s struggle for relevance continues in a sports media landscape where the NFL gets bigger, and everything else seems to get smaller. Year after year.

With pro football absolutely dominating TV ratings every single weekend, it is getting tougher and tougher for other sports to achieve any type of viral cut-through.

NASCAR was again finding it tough during the recent Cup Series playoffs, with ratings down year on year. Partly thanks to a new $7.7bn rights package which sends a ton of races over to the irrelevant USA network rather than big old NBC.

The folks in Charlotte are clearly trying to change all this - even having a program whereby drivers get rewarded for building their own brands.

Well there is one age-old way to build a brand and drum up some publicity - start a fight. And one insider this week came up with just that solution to making NASCAR great once again.

The Athletic insider Jordan Bianchi believes it is time for NASCAR to stop fining drivers who fight each other. And instead, maybe even start paying them.

Jordan Bianchi on NASCAR fights

Bianchi threw out the suggestion (which by the way, we absolutely buy into) during The Teardown podcast with The Athletic colleague Jeff Gluck.

Jordan admitted that not allowing pit crews to get involved in a rumble is fair enough, but he is not willing to rule out completely the chance of beef becoming physical. In fact he might applaud it.

He reasoned: “But if Ricky Stenhouse Jr is going to pop Kyle Busch [this happened at the All Star Race in May], I’m not fining him $75,000 [this also happened].

“Hell, I’m probably going to pay him $75,000 for that and go ‘Here’s your check, thank you for that, you just got us on every national outlet in the country and we’re not going to embarrass you by fining you 75 grand. Which by the way p***es off your sponsor because your sponsor is like ‘Oh man, that makes us look bad’.

“Like no, we’re going to celebrate it. We’re going to make you look like a badass. And your sponsor is going to be like ‘Yeah, that’s my guy’.”

Bianchi has another reason to hate the system where drivers do get fined for fighting - the fact that the footage of those fights still probably gets used to create interest.

“It really bothers me. It’s so hypocritical to sit there and fine these guys this money, and at the same time turn around and use it for a commercial. You can’t have it both ways.”