“This is going to be wild.” An anonymous team owner declared this about the NASCAR lawsuit last October – and they were undoubtedly right. Michael Jordan and Co. so far have held an advantage, coming out of an ugly showdown with NASCAR. The sanctioning body has tried to topple their charter security unsuccessfully and also tried to slander 23XI Racing co-owner Curtis Polk to no avail. However, Jordan and Co.’s attempt to involve other sports leagues to bolster their claims is not looking so good.

The primary objective of the lawsuit was to prove that Jim France and Co. were running NASCAR as a monopoly. For that, the discovery phase leading to the upcoming trial on December 1st is ongoing. However, other leagues like the NFL are vehemently protesting against getting included in this phase.

Michael Jordan gets a bitter rejection

For 76 years, the France family has ruled most of NASCAR. Ranging from owning racetracks to making the sport an exclusive forum outside of which drivers could not participate, the family has control. Teams had a small share of the revenue from media, the bread and butter of the sport. So, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports want to unravel the economic fabric of the sport – wishing to publicize NASCAR’s finances. However, to show the ‘monopolistic practices’ of the France family, Michael Jordan and Co. need yardsticks of comparison to show the egregious differences. For that reason, they have requested to see the financial information of other sports leagues.

What is more? Michael Jordan‘s legal team went to court to enforce the subpoenas they have issued to the NFL, NBA, NHL, and Formula 1 over the last two weeks. The request reads as follows in the teams’ statement: “Plaintiffs seek four categories of information … showing team and league revenues and how those revenues are split between the league and its teams.” However, the NFL has already responded – in a cutting way.

FOX Sports Journalist Bob Pockrass posted on X, “The Subpoena is based on the flimsiest of premises: that because Plaintiffs are suing NASCAR, they can obtain — by way of federal process — financials, financial projections, research, studies, analyses, and other highly confidential, proprietary, and commercially sensitive information belonging to almost every other major sports league in the United States.”

Thi was a damning verdict from the NFL. It adds another major roadblock in the plaintiff’s claims, as their ability to win this case hinges on proving these monopolistic practices. In December 2024, when the preliminary injunction was overturned by Judge Kenneth Bell to allow 23XI and FRM to run as open teams, another landmark verdict was made by the judge, “The Court finds that NASCAR possesses monopoly/monopsony power in the relevant market, which is the market for premier stock car racing teams in the United States… NASCAR fully controls which race teams can compete at the highest level of stock car racing – effectively, it has a 100% market share.” 

This was huge for the teams, as their claims of a monopoly were validated, and it led to a trial scheduled for December 2025. However, in more recent developments, NASCAR claimed that the judge’s ruling was wrong and that the sanctioning body has the right to make their own rules and regulations as standard business practice, while it is up to the teams to accept them or not, and 13 out of the 15 teams did. This is what led 23XI Racing to start branching out to different leagues and figure out whether this sort of ‘monopoly’ exists elsewhere. However, approaching the NFL was a bad idea, as 23XI’s representative is not in their good books, to say the least.

Jeffrey Kessler is Michael Jordan and Co.’s representative in the NASCAR lawsuit. But he has also been involved with the NFL in the past. The landmark Freeman McNeil case against the NFL was led by Kessler. It established free agency in that league in 1991. So NFL further wrote in its bitter rejection: “Not only does the Subpoena seek the NFL’s most confidential information, it would put that information into the hands of some of the NFL’s most consistent legal opponents and a participant in the broader sports and entertainment marketplace.”

Michael Jordan and Co. also filed a motion with the US District Court of Colorado to compel Liberty Media, F1’s owner, to comply with the subpoena request. But in the Colorado filing this week, the teams made their stance very clear. “F1 has no valid basis for its refusal to produce the requested information”. Liberty Media called the NASCAR teams’ request “overboard”. It would “result in the disclosure of material relating to trade secrets, financial information or other confidential, proprietary and commercial information” protected by law.

Clearly, these bitter rejections are a setback for the teams in the lawsuit. However, Michael Jordan and Co. are not backing down.

Trending

1

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Limps Across the Finish Line as JR Motorsports Outmaneuvers 21 YO Phenom

2

Richard Childress’s New NASCAR Driver Makes Feelings Known on Bristol as Flop Grandson Hints Career Change

3

NASCAR Driver Kyle Larson Left in Disbelief as Ignorance Causes Unexpected 2 Hour ‘Jail’

4

Insider Goes on Ballistic Rant as NASCAR Pushes Blame on Goodyear Over “Pathetic” Bristol Race

5

12-YO Keelan Harvick Comes Agonizingly Short Despite Creating History at Father Kevin Harvick’s CARS Tour

Watering down their request

At first glance, Michael Jordan and Co.’s latest venture seems a little intrusive for other leagues. After all, the revenues of the other sports leagues are not available to the public. 23XI Racing asked F1 to turn over five key categories of financial information. This involved the famed Concorde Agreement, which concerns the commercial and governance of the sport. This is highly confidential and protected by agreements to keep the details private. However, Jordan’s side argued that they were simply requesting “documents sufficient to show” rather than every document. They feel the “requests are modest and targeted. They are focused on the salary cap and government documents that are readily available to Liberty Media and F1.”

There is a confidentiality concern as well. Liberty Media’s sharing of revenue with F1 teams, or how it is split up, is not public knowledge. Even in this case, 23XI Racing said a settlement could be reached. Those documents need not reach the public eye: “Confidentiality concerns can be addressed by marking sensitive documents highly confidential under the court-ordered Protective Order in the underlying Litigation, which will ensure the documents are only seen by counsel, experts, and the court.” The teams also proclaimed that they did not “demand any custodial email searches of any F1 executives or employees.”

Evidently, Michael Jordan and Co. are going all out in their fight against NASCAR. As bitter rejections line up, let us see what follows next in this legal battle.