By Sabrina Lynch
- Nascar and Michael Jordan’s lawsuit is in a standoff after a court denied an injunction to Jordan’s team
- The MotorSports market grew from $6.6B in 2024 to $7.31B this year
It’s been a challenging race to the finish line in the latest lawsuit between NASCAR and Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing team. This tit for tat began with 23XI Racing and Front Row Sports declining to sign a new NASCAR charter agreement, which the aforementioned teams felt would jeopardize their fair share of the race purse. So in a bid to increase the revenues and influence of NASCAR Cup Series, Michael Jordan and Front Row MotorSports took legal action against the organization and chairman Jim France. Their suit claimed NASCAR’s actions violated antitrust laws, however NASCAR has since filed a countersuit which accused Jordan’s team of “interfering with” negotiations and “threatening boycotts of NASCAR events”.
Why This Matters: Charters, once considered experimental, are now trading up to $40 million (up from $2 million in less than a decade), with the MotorSports market projected to and is projected to hit $11.37 billion by 2030. NASCAR argues the antitrust lawsuit is less about competition and more about forcing a permanent charter that would grant Jordan’s team more long-term security and potentially greater resale or investment value.
To put it into perspective, It costs approximately $18 million a year to run a NASCAR team. There’s only a handful of Black-owned teams and owners in NASCAR right now, including JTG Daugherty Racing that’s co-owned by Brad Daugherty and NY Racing Team which is co-owned by John Cohen, so Jordan’s efforts to keep a tight foothold on his franchises makes sense.
What’s Next: 23XI Racing’s pursuit of guaranteed access to NASCAR’s revenues is going to be a slow sprint, a North Carolina judge has currently blocked their bid to bar NASCAR from selling any more charters this season due to the racing organization already agreeing not to do so.
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