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Michael Jordan and his 23XI race team are one of a pair of entities suing NASCAR for what they claim are anti-competitive practices.
Jordan’s 23XI team and 23XI Racing, which is co-owned by Joe Gibbs Racing star Denny Hamlin, and Front Row Motorsports allege that NASCAR and CEO Jim France used “anticompetitive and exclusionary practices” to “enrich themselves at the expense of the premier stock car racing teams” according to Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.
The suit comes just weeks after 13 of the 15 major teams agreed to NASCAR’s new charter agreement. The agreement, which serves as a sort of collective bargaining agreement, guarantees those teams sports on the NASCAR grid in exchange for certain financial terms.
Although the exact financial terms were not made public.
Michael Jordan’s NASCAR Lawsuit Comes After Tense Charter Negotiations
But owners weren’t happy about the deal. Rick Hendrick, perhaps the sport’s most powerful owner, said NASCAR wore down teams before they eventually relented.
“I think we worked really hard for two years and it got down to, you’re not going to make everybody happy. And I think it got down to, I was just tired,” Hendrick said via The Associated Press. “Not everybody was happy. But in any negotiation, you’re not going to get everything you want, and so I felt it was a fair deal and we protected the charters, which was number one, we got the (revenue) increase, I feel a lot of things we didn’t like we got taken out, so I’m happy with where we were.”
Jordan’s team, as well as Front Row Motorsports, did not agree to the terms.
But they could still on the grid next year. As part of the suit, the teams are asking for a preliminary injunction that will allow them to compete as chartered teams in 2025 while still proceeding with the lawsuit.
“I don’t know what it’s going to cost me if I lose two charters in my race team, but it’s a lot of money,” Front Row Motorsports owner Jenkins said in an interview. “But it’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing for the sport.”
So, why now?
“They made a very serious threat to us, so we had to react seriously,” Hamlin told The Athletic.
The suit could drastically change the future of the sport. NASCAR has been a private, family-owned business since its inception. It is often very private about its finances.
Now those finances stand to become public as part of this suit. And if they do, the entire charter system could well come crumbling down.