Friday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway, NASCAR President Steve Phelps and Chief Operating Officer Steve O’Donnell delivered the annual State of the Sport address. As always, a wide range of topics were covered, but among the most important topics were the ongoing charter negotiations between the NASCAR Cup Series teams and the sanctioning body, the upcoming media rights agreement, the power of star drivers and the elements affecting short track and road course competition.
Here is a look at highlights from the media session.
Charter Negotiations/Media Rights Agreement
One of the biggest intrigues going on behind the scenes in NASCAR are the ongoing negotiations between the NASCAR Cup Series teams and the sanctioning body regarding the charter agreement, which has been used in the NASCAR Cup Series since the 2016 season.
Teams are becoming more and more frustrated as they try to turn a profit each year. It appears the teams are trying to negotiate a larger share of TV revenue in the next deal. But there are growing fears that the Charter agreement will no longer be relevant in 2025.
Phelps addressed this topic and said negotiations are still ongoing, but nothing concrete can be decided until the next media rights deal is fully concluded.
“I think the first thing we need to do is assert our media rights,” Phelps explained. “I think the racing teams have seen that. That said, we are currently having discussions with our racing teams. We had a meeting last Wednesday with a team owners council where the entire meeting was about on charters, charter extensions.”
NASCAR echoes the sentiment shared by racing teams that organizations should be more profitable than they have been, it’s all about finding that balance.
“We recognized that we want to change the paradigm of our racing teams and that we need to make sure that our racing teams are profitable and competing on racetracks. We want to see their enterprise value increase, as I said earlier,” Phelps said. said.
Asked about the possibility of the charter agreement being a deal in perpetuity, Phelps said he couldn’t talk about the details of the negotiation, but that he believed the teams and NASCAR would find common ground.
“We won’t go into negotiations specifically, but I will say that I am confident that the teams and NASCAR will come to an agreement that is fair to the racing teams, fair to NASCAR, and will contribute to the development of the sport. I think that that’s what we’re going to do,” Phelps concluded.
Although the next media rights deal is not finalized, Phelps says the process is close to fruition.
“Our media rights and the interest in securing our media rights for 2025 and beyond have exceeded our expectations,” Phelps said. “We not only expect to have a great result with the CW with our partners who will consider a combination of broadcast, cable and streaming to some extent.
“What that looks like, I don’t know. Are we towards the end of this process? We’re there. Did I think we’d have a result sooner? I thought so. But that’s not the case. It’s an incredibly competitive market.”
Short track / road course competition package
While last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway definitely showed promising signs that the Next Gen car, in its current form, can put on good races on short tracks, massive efforts have been made to find the key to product improvement on short circuits. trails and road courses throughout the season.
Multiple testing sessions, which have included a number of splitter and underbody components, have yet to make much difference. Many drivers and fans have suggested increasing horsepower on short tracks and road courses in an effort to produce better racing.
Until Friday, NASCAR had always kind of shut down those suggestions. On Friday, they seemed a little more open to discussing it.
“I think everything is up for consideration,” O’Donnell said when asked if increasing horsepower was an option. “We’ve proven it. You also have to consider the costs involved, right? It’s not as simple as increasing the power. You’d better be prepared to integrate all your equipment This makes sense for any potential new OEMs and technologies. It’s not just a short-term answer.
While they won’t close the door on increasing the horsepower of the Next Gen car, O’Donnell said NASCAR has other points they’d like to address before looking into changing the horsepower numbers .
“For us, we’re going to look at specifically changing that in our next test and see what we can do,” O’Donnell explained. “There will be variations. We’re also doing some aerodynamic things with the underbody. There are some things we found at Richmond from an aerodynamic standpoint that might work as well. Nothing to report in terms of yes, we’ll do it. Open to everything, but I would say in the short term more on the gear changes and the aero package.”
