The 2024 NASCAR off-season is proving to be a very busy one for series president, Steve Phelps. Now, post-season is always busy for NASCAR because a lot of work has to be done before the new year kicks off. However, the 2024 campaign has been particularly strenuous because the sport is caught up in a big lawsuit. The spearhead behind the lawsuit is NBA legend Michael Jordan, who happens to own a NASCAR Cup team with Denny Hamlin.

In a recent conversation with The Athletic, Phelps spoke about the effect the lawsuit is having on him. The interview harked back to 2023 when the president acknowledged that he was getting ‘sleepless nights.’ This was largely because he was aware that there were a lot of things on his plate in the build-up to the new season. Fast-forward to nearly a year later, and is the answer the same? Surprisingly, the NASCAR president insisted that things were going along swimmingly.

NASCAR President Steve Phelps is confident that 2025 will be successful

Unfortunately, that situation has led to 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports filing a lawsuit against the sport. He didn’t address the Michael Jordan lawsuit in so many words but implied that he is confident that they can get past this. Additionally, from the sounds of it, NASCAR seems to have bigger plans in mind from 2025 onwards, and he is excited.

Phelps told The Athletic, “I am actually not. I’m really encouraged by the direction that the sport is going. I think we are well positioned as we get into ’25 with new media partners, a great product on the racetrack, some really good storylines, and overall a healthy sport. So to me, I’m sleeping very soundly. Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t have things to do. We’ve got lots to do and there are lots of opportunities for us to grow, both domestically and internationally.”

2025 is going to be a massive year for NASCAR. It’s not just the competition coming back or the charter agreement kicking in. NASCAR has a $7.7 billion media deal in place that is set to revolutionize the sport. The whole point of this new deal is to modernize NASCAR’s broadcasting aspects. In addition to previous broadcasters, NASCAR also brought Amazon on board. This means fans can stream the race, allowing new potential viewers to enter the sport.

What’s even more exciting is Amazon’s promise. They made their commitment to NASCAR clear with a promise to treat them on the same level as the NFL. For context, in 2023, after Amazon came on board, Thursday Night Football had an average viewership of 11.86 million viewers, jumping over 20% from 2022. Now, while this might be in the context of the NFL, the results are clear. Working with platforms that stream the races can open the floodgates for NASCAR. With split broadcast duties across the 38-weekend calendar, it will be the first time that NASCAR will be broadcast on OTT platforms and a step towards the future.

Not just the media deal, NASCAR is also pushing international boundaries this year. For the first time since 1958, a Cup Series race will take place outside the United States. After the experiment in Japan died down, NASCAR made the bold decision of racing at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in 2025. It’s the same circuit that hosts the Mexican GP every year, with a massive crowd watching from the stands.

However, NASCAR find themselves embroiled in a legal struggle against two of their teams. Let’s take a look at what the lawsuit is about.

What is the deal behind the Michael Jordan lawsuit?

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Of course, with the new media rights deal, the next step is to sign a new charter agreement with the various teams. However, there have been so many negotiations that went nowhere. The negotiations delayed several times until NASCAR threw in an ultimatum and the majority of the teams had no choice but to sign.

However, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports were not about to put up with that. One of the major reasons the teams chose to fight was the limited time given to them to sign the deal and their objections to certain clauses in the agreements, for which they rejected the new charter deal. Their claims were proven veteran team owner Richard Childress revealed they only had six hours to go over the paperwork and sign. Realising the terrifying situation it put his team in, Childress gave in and signed.

He explained, “We’ve read it all, I can’t comment a whole lot now, because I know the attorneys are handling a lot of that. But I will say the part about, we got our DocuSign that evening at 6:37 PM ET is when it came in, and we had to sign it by 12 AM ET or we’d lose our Charters. I didn’t have a choice because we had to sign. I have over 400 employees, OEM in contracts, contracts with sponsors, and I have to take care of my team.” It wasn’t just Childress speaking up about the odd situation NASCAR put them in. Even Rick Hendrick, another senior figure in the NASCAR circle admitted he only signed because he grew tired of the negotiations.

With Michael Jordan and Co.’s first injunction rejected, they refiled and now fight to run their cars in 2025. If granted, the injunction grants them the same privileges as a chartered car without having signed the new agreement.