CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A top group NASCAR Team owners missed a meeting with series officials Wednesday, with the two sides at an impasse over permanent charters, a key part of the stock car series’ business model.
Fearing that the meeting would be “hijacked” by talking only about charters – multi-million dollar guarantees of having a car in NASCAR’s top Cup Series – the team’s owners council told NASCAR that he believed that the discussions should be postponed.
NASCAR said it planned to hold the meeting anyway, but the teams did not attend, said Curtis Polk, co-owner of 23XI Racing and one of four members of a negotiating committee that is trying to Develop a new business plan for the national top. racing series.
“It was obvious that if we got the whole group together, that would be the only topic that everyone would want to talk about and that’s generally not constructive,” said Dave Alpern, president of Joe Gibbs Racing. Alpern, Polk, Jeff Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports and Steve Newmark of RFK Racing are the board members representing all teams.
The owners made their frustration public last October over what they see as a broken business model in which racetracks and NASCAR make most of the money and teams are forced to fund their organizations through outside sponsorships.
In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Alpern and Polk said significant progress had been made with NASCAR on many key issues, but that the two sides had reached a “significant impasse” on charters.
NASCAR adopted a 36-car charter system in 2016 that comes as close as possible to a franchise model in a sport independently founded and owned by the France family. Charters give teams something of value to hold – or sell – and protect their investment in the sport.
The charters are both renewable – the current ones expire at the end of the 2024 season – and revocable by NASCAR if a team fails to perform over a predetermined period of time. Racing teams want the charters to become permanent, and NASCAR is apparently unwilling to even discuss the issue.
“It’s the foundation that everything else is built on. If they gave you the moon, but are able to take it away periodically, what’s the point of having the moon? Polk told AP.
Credit: WCNC
Joey Logano (22) and Daniel Suárez (99) race around the Charlotte Roval during the NASCAR Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on October 9, 2022.
NASCAR said it was willing to work with teams on financial security and reiterated that commitment Wednesday after no owners showed up for the meeting.
“NASCAR is committed to maintaining an open and productive dialogue on a regular basis with all industry stakeholders,” NASCAR said in a statement. “We remain committed to continuing discussions in a spirit of collaboration and with the common goal of developing our sport for the benefit of all stakeholders. »
The breakdown occurred after the entire Race Team Alliance held a call Tuesday to discuss topics for the small meeting with NASCAR. The RTA is made up of all 16 teams and teams can have as many representatives as they want on these calls.
When it became clear on the call with more than 50 participants that permanent charters were the only issue the RTA wanted to address, the smaller bargaining committee informed NASCAR that its meeting would have to be postponed. Meetings with NASCAR are limited to one team owner and one executive from each of the 16 approved teams.
When asked what would happen next, Polk replied, “We’re ready to meet.” We want to make a deal. But he reiterated that negotiations must open on permanent charters.
Alpern and Polk declined to discuss details of how the teams gained traction with NASCAR during months of negotiations.
NASCAR has maintained that teams receive about 40% of the revenue generated industry-wide.
The financial breakdown of the $8.2 billion media rights deal signed before the 2015 season sends 65 percent to the tracks, 25 percent to the teams and 10 percent to NASCAR, depending on the series. There are two main track operators, NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports; NASCAR owns the majority of venues on the Cup Series schedule, including crown jewel Daytona International Speedway, and the France family owns NASCAR.
The teams argued that they have become “full-time fundraisers” seeking sponsorships to keep their organizations afloat and that the only possible way to make further financial cuts is through layoffs.
The teams revealed last October that sponsorship covers 60 to 80% of the budgets of the 16 approved organizations. Because sponsorship is so vital, teams are desperate for financial help elsewhere and have asked NASCAR to help cover basic costs.
NASCAR President Steve Phelps told the AP in February that he was confident a solution could be found.
“We have said publicly and we will continue to say publicly that we need to have financially sound racing teams,” Phelps said then. “Financially healthy racing teams will put a better product on the track and that’s great for the sport as a whole.”
The current charter contract expires at the same time that NASCAR’s current television contracts expire. NASCAR is in an exclusive negotiating window with Fox Sports and NBC Sports on renewals. The exclusivity period expires May 1, Phelps told AP, and NASCAR may explore television rights deals with outside partners after that date.
