“If you want to race, you race in their park if you want to race NASCAR.” This is what Richard Childress, one of the team owners who signed the new charter deal, said recently. The situation inside the sport is getting more tense by the day, as the sanctioning body has chosen to keep mum, ever since Michael Jordan and Co. filed the NASCAR lawsuit. However, Jordan’s ultimate goal may be clear now.

Over the past two years, the Race Team Alliance demanded four pillars from the officials. While one of them directly broached finances, the others hovered over authority issues. So as rumors filter in about astronomical revenue increases in the new deal, an insider dissects Jordan’s true purpose.

Seize the reins instead of hogging the cake

When NASCAR released the terms of the new charter agreement, teams were left in a fix. Initially, there was a 1-hour deadline, but then the sanctioning body extended it to 6 hours. This take-it-or-leave-it attitude did not give team owners much of a choice – “It was just, you sign it or you lose your charters,” Childress said. For 76 years that NASCAR has been in existence, the France family has maintained this status quo in the sport. They own most of the racetracks, call the shots in racing rules, ink new media deals, etc. This “monopolistic” attitude is what left a NASCAR lawsuit in their hands.

And now it seems achieving that may be Michael Jordan’s overarching goal here. Eric Estepp recently revealed a crucial aspect of the new charter deal that NASCAR insider Jordan Bianchi explained. That may be enough to deflate the NASCAR lawsuit’s value. “Jordan Bianchi said that he has heard the teams will receive a lot more money under the new charter agreement that 13 or 15 owners signed…Teams will receive the largest chunk of the media revenue pie…Right now, tracks get 65% of the revenue, teams get 25. That would be a huge swap if in fact, the teams get a larger slice of the pie. Not to mention the new media rights deal is almost 40% larger – the teams could be talking about a massive revenue increase next year.”

So can the judge and jury cite this to rubbish the NASCAR lawsuit’s claims? Estepp claims that Michael Jordan and Co. ultimately want more control rather than more money. The lawsuit’s words also indicate that: “The new agreement seized control over teams’ intellectual property rights, to be used for NASCAR’s benefit…It did not give the teams any meaningful role in the governance of the sport.” Of the four pillars that the RTA demanded, three bordered on more control – permanent charters, a voice in decisions, and grabbing new business opportunities. So Estepp laid his verdict: “Clearly, the teams care more about control than they do simply a dollar amount.” 

Whatever the ultimate goal is, Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin are keen on winning.

Two fierce men behind NASCAR lawsuit 

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When 23XI Racing took root in 2020, Jordan was not just creating a team to place cars on the racetrack every week. He transferred his competitive itch to his race team and intended to win. And four years down the line, that plan has become a resounding success – Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace, and Kurt Busch have all accumulated 7 wins. So when Jordan led the 23XI and Front Row Motorsports faction in filing the anti-trust NASCAR lawsuit, he was confident. “I wouldn’t have filed it if I didn’t think I could win,” he declared on Sunday.

23XI Racing’s co-owner Denny Hamlin also feels the same way. Having spent 19 years in the sport, the veteran racer waited a long time to finally see the status quo flip in NASCAR. “It’s not like just one day we woke up and said, ‘This is going to happen,'” said Hamlin, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, before qualifying eighth for Sunday’s NASCAR playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway. “This has been on the plate for a while. It’s provided relief for me to put more focus on (driving) the No. 11 car and everything I have to do there since (the lawsuit) is out and now there are other people out to speak on it from the legality standpoint.”

Evidently, the officials have a lot to rack their brains about in the NASCAR lawsuit. This may be a revolutionary point in the sport, so let us wait and see how it unfolds.