Three years ago, Jeff Gordon, vice president of the most successful organization in NASCAR history, predicted a frightening future for every team – and every fan – of the sport.
Sitting in a conference room a few blocks from NASCAR’s offices in Charlotte, North Carolina, the four-time champion sat alongside three other team executives. They told some members of the media in October 2022 that the sport’s business model was “broken.”
Gordon said at that meeting that Hendrick Motorsports, which won Cup championships in 2020 and 2021, would not turn a profit in 2022. In fact, Gordon said, it had been “a while” since the organization had done so.
“Where we are right now is not sustainable,” he said.
If the best team in sports may not be able to survive in the future, how could any team? What would happen to the sport loved by so many fans? How close were the teams to a breaking point?
Fourteen months after two teams – including one co-owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin – filed a lawsuit against NASCAR and nine days after the start of a trial that saw NASCAR CEO and President Jim France, NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps, car owner Richard Childress, Jordan and Hamlin, among others, take the stand, the two sides announced a settlement.
The trial is over. Consider this the sport’s gift to fans two weeks before Christmas.
“We can focus again on what we really love and that is racing,” France told reporters as he stood alongside Jordan on the steps of the federal courthouse Thursday in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We’ve spent a lot of time not really focused on this as much as we should be. I feel like we’ve made a really good decision here together and we have a great opportunity to continue to grow the sport. … We need to focus on what we all love.”
It took someone like Jordan to help lead the sport down this path. Jordan didn’t enter NASCAR simply as a businessman with a passing interest in the sport. He is a long-time fan, a passion passed down from his father.
“He worked on engines for years,” Jordan said of his father James in an exclusive interview with NBC Sports and Fox in September 2020, shortly after it was announced that Jordan was getting into the sport as a car owner.
“He became a huge stock car fan and he trained us to do the same. I went to Darlington, Rockingham, Charlotte, Talladega. (Long-time NASCAR car owner) Hoss Ellington was from Wilmington (North Carolina) and he worked on cars with Hoss Ellington at the time. I’ve been involved in auto racing for a long time as a fan.”
Jordan and Hamlin’s partnership started as a joke. Hamlin was a season ticket holder for the Charlotte Hornets when Jordan owned the NBA team and got to know him. When reports linked these two as possible owners of a NASCAR team, Hamlin sent the story to Jordan along with a note.
“Looks like we own it together, ha ha. Congratulations.”
Jordan replied: “Fake news, but if you want to make it real news, let me know. »
This led to the birth of 23XI Racing, which debuted in 2021. The team expanded to two teams in 2022 and three teams last season.
Even with such growth, concerns remained about team funding. Two years of negotiations between the teams and NASCAR did not achieve what Jordan, Hamlin and Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins hoped for. 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports have not signed the September 2024 charter agreement.
The team’s 13 other owners signed the lease, but as Childress told the court last week, he did so because he couldn’t afford to lose his rentals. The charter system is similar to the franchise model in other sports (with at least one big exception, until this deal). A charter guarantees a team a starting place in each race and certain financial conditions.
Having failed to sign the charter agreement, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and France on October 2, 2024.
“Someone had to step forward and challenge the entity,” Jordan told the jury on Dec. 5, the fifth day of the trial. “I was in these meetings with longtime owners who had been intimidated for so many years trying to make changes. I was a new person, I wasn’t afraid. I felt like I could challenge NASCAR as a whole. I felt like when it came to the sport, you had to look at it from a different perspective.”
If NASCAR teams have had charters since 2016, they had to be renewed. Thursday’s settlement makes them permanent. 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports, which lost each of their three charters for the final 16 races of last season, will get them back.
Thursday’s agreement was something Judge Kenneth D. Bell had encouraged both sides to do several times over the last year. At an August hearing, Bell warned NASCAR that if 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports “win, NASCAR will look a lot different.” He also warned both sides during that same hearing: “If one of you is certain you will win, you are wrong. »
Details of the deal have yet to be revealed, but there’s definitely a winner. The fans. They are returning to their sport.
“I wish we could have done this a few months ago,” Bell said in court, according to media reports, after reading the settlement. “I think it’s great for NASCAR. Great for the future of NASCAR. Great for the NASCAR entity. Great for the teams and ultimately great for the fans.”
Car owner Rick Hendrick, who was on NASCAR’s list to testify this week, welcomed news of the deal, saying, “I am incredibly optimistic about what lies ahead. When our industry is united, there is no limit to how far we can go or how far we can grow the sport we love.”
Ultimately, Jordan said, on the courthouse steps, it came down to “level heads” favoring a deal.
“I’ve said it from day one, the only way this sport can grow is if we find some synergy between the two entities,” he said Thursday of the teams and NASCAR. “I think we’ve gotten to this point. Unfortunately it’s taken 16 months to get to this point, but I think the cool head has gotten us to this point where we can actually work together and grow this sport.”
As one of the lawyers said at the end of the press session outside the courthouse: “Let’s go racing.”
There are only 66 days left – and counting – until the Daytona 500.
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Editor’s Note: After more than a decade covering NASCAR for NBC Sports, Dustin Long will transition to a new role at USA Sports in 2026. We are incredibly grateful for his years of hard-working, hard-hitting journalism and his consummate professionalism and teamwork. The NBC Sports team wishes Dustin all the best in his new endeavor.
