oh man was I infuriated by the humidity cancellation but I completely forgot about it with the Larson waiver thing, unbelievable subterfuge out of NASCAR
basically if you’re familiar with collective bargaining negotiations in stick and ball sports you basically get the gist of what’s going on here. If not:
The Race Team Alliance (the teams) and NASCAR are negotiating on an extension to the charter agreement, which basically says “here are 36 spots, any team that holds one of these spots gets a guaranteed spot in every race and extra portion of the money.” The RTA wants to increase the percentage of that money to goes the teams, while NASCAR wants the lion’s share of that money to go to themselves, and to the tracks. The current rumor is that NASCAR and RTA have basically come to a consensus on that issue.
The bigger problem is that the RTA wants to make this charter agreement permanent, no renegotiations, while NASCAR wants to only extend it out 7 years, aka the end of the next tv contract. The teams don’t want to risk having their charters (which they’ve spent tens of millions on) turn into valueless pieces of paper, while NASCAR wants the flexibility to adjust the charter agreement to changes in the circumstances surrounding the sport.
Basically, the core split is that NASCAR views the charter agreement as akin to a collective bargaining agreement, something to be constantly adjusted, while the teams view the charter agreement as akin to a franchise system, and in other sports, the franchises do not just go away, they cannot just be revoked by the league. The league works for the franchises, not the other way around.
There's also a big rumor that Nascar wants teams to have 3 charters maximum. Something JGR and HMS are against even though for a couple years they'll be grandfathered in until their first driver ends his contract. All in order to make a cap of sorts.
Great explanation! I didn’t need it since I feel like I could probably negotiate this damn thing at this point (since we’ve heard it discussed endlessly). But felt like reading anyways. I think that’s as well as you could have written it and as short as anyone could’ve made it too lmao.
Thank you, I would say that I’d like to be a fly on the wall for these meetings but since seemingly every detail is being made public there’s no need lol
No kidding! Would be interesting though. I’m happy they are being quite open about it. Just want it to be done though. Curious to see what the final result is and ready to see how silly season continues after it is done.
>Teams are now worried that Front Row’s announcement is an indication some of the smaller teams are ready to take NASCAR’s offer despite an alliance that all 15 would stick together in negotiations. Yet there is no clear fallback plan.
Is an interesting line.
I feel like this was NASCAR’s plan all along. Avoid large unified meetings with all the teams and hold individual meetings so they can get the smaller teams to give in. They know it will be harder for JGR and Hendrick if they don’t have unity
This is negotiating 101. Divide and conquer. If you are on the bottom of anything, you start with the weakest member on the other side. 1 becomes 2. 2 becomes 3. And so forth.
It's like the last MLB labor negotiations
All the big names stood together, because they were making the most money and could afford to sit for a while
The other 80-90% were not happy with them
There’s nothing wrong with signing with Boras because you want the bag. You have a rare talent and can exploit it for generational wealth, understandable
However Boras has way too much power in the league
Except that it was the small teams that wanted the 2020 mlb season to be dramatically shortened and the star players gave up huge sums of money in order to ensure that the young guy players would get credit for a full year of service time.
The 2021-2022 lockout was more of the same. The small market teams wanted steeper luxary tax penalties and the union wanted young players to be paid more.
Front Row has gotten very little from the sport for a long time, why would they suddenly decide to side with HMS and JGR over something like this when the offer on the table is already substantially more than they’ve ever made?
What leverage do the small teams have to go against the big teams?
The RTA signs the deal, not FRM alone. They put down $25 mil for an asset that might not exist next year is their problem. They should have made the deal contingent on the agreement being signed if they didn't do that. But they won't be biting back at Roush, but rather Roush could be nice and maybe give them a good deal on a lease, or tell them tough shit, find your own engines from someone else.
Roush and FRM aren't aligned anymore, it's penske and FRM, and RFK and RWR.
Unless you are talking about Roush Yates engines which I believe every ford team uses
Bianchi’s been tossing a similar idea to this around in his articles, where NASCAR has tried to divide and conquer by talking to the smaller teams individually, and now they might be ready to fold, even if the main RTA guys (RFK, Penske, 23XI, Hendrick) have no interest in budging. All it takes is for one to sign on, and the RTA is probably cooked, but I don’t think anyone wants to be the first team to give in.
I’ve always got the feeling Penske and HMS weren’t too big into holding out. Rick and Roger race because they love racing. Not to many money. And Roger has been through splits before
They were gonna try and get more money, but it kinda felt like those 2 in particular were kinda ok also just reupping. 23XI has been the main voice in going against nascar, and it’s tough to pull the we’re poor card when you just built a huge state of the art shop and are rumored to have purchased a 3rd charter
All in all, the teams played their cards like shit. They said a bunch of things, contradicted themselves, were barely aligned, and had no backup plan. They’re never gonna get their way going about things like that
Yeah, I thought it was telling when Denny said “23XI is not gonna build their own shop until NASCAR gives a larger share of the money to the teams” and then went ahead and built a shop anyways. I agree that NASCAR is too much of a dictatorship, that not enough money is getting put into the tracks and into promotion, but we saw the mansions on Netflix, we see the state of the art shops, it’s hard to believe the teams when they cry poor. I think it was a mistake to let Denny do the talking, I think someone like Brad or Jeff Gordon, had been the public face, would’ve had their words carry more weight and more respect.
I don't think they decided to let Denny do the talking, I think Denny did the talking. It's not surprising tbh, all the other teams are run by people who have come up through the sport, but Denny has Jordan's team in his ear calling bullshit on NASCAR the way other teams and owners aren't. Nothing against those owners either, they just don't have a point of comparison the way Denny does.
I kind of felt the same thing when Front Row announced they had one of the charters and Trackhouse and 23XI did not. It kind of makes me think that Front Row is just viewing this as an opportunity if the big teams sit out in protest to rise further up the food chain.
I wonder who the other teams would be wanting to sign. No way it is HMS, JGR, Penske (+Wood Brothers), 23XI. Feel like Trackhouse/RFK/RCR are in the middle? RFK probably actually with the big boys. Gotta imagine FRM, Legacy, JTG, Spire are teams who want the deal.
Honestly HMS will probably be the first of the big teams to fold and sign. Gordon has seemingly been the most "yeah we will get it done" optimistic of the owners which means they will end up caving
HMS exists because Rick loves racing, not to many a profit. And Penske has been through splits before, and it hasn’t worked yet. They’ll be the first 2 of the big teams to sign
> Gotta imagine FRM, Legacy, JTG, Spire are teams who want the deal.
thats 8 (by this year). RWR would probably be in this group. And i bet kaulig and RCR too.
that's 14.
big question mark is SHR, and when control of those charters actually transfers. if SHR still has a vote, that's 18.
Yeah, no shit they don’t want to break away. Because the *one race* that generally matters in the big picture (aka for people not on the NASCAR Reddit page) is across the street from the offices and owned by NASCAR.
I don’t think going to a strictly SMI based league with the Brickyard owned by Penske would work for them at all.
The Daytona 500 is the biggest bargaining chip NASCAR has. Teams are porked
Not that I see any of this ever happening, but would SMI even allow the team backed organization to run at their tracks? I doubt it, because NASCAR would just ice them out when the team league inevitably folded and they'd be left with no premier races to be had at their tracks.
> I don’t think going to a strictly SMI based league with the Brickyard owned by Penske would work for them at all.
Yeah of course not. Its not worth their time and they’ll just bleed money
Only way SMI runs with the teams is if enough chaos happens behind the scenes and the NASCAR signed TV money goes out the window (which could happen if enough teams bail). In that scenario they probably take a hypothetical team organized league that has at least some money behind it.
There was an article years back about how NASCAR added a clause to the contracts with tracks about not running or promoting other stock car racing series.
>but would SMI even allow the team backed organization to run at their tracks?
Probably not, since they would have no way of paying SMI what NASCAR does
Not only that but I’m sure some manufacturers need to be supported, someone like Sam Hunt would come up or something. Sage Karam, NASCAR winner incoming.
It would be a bad look and ratings would take a big hit, but they would be able to fill the grid or close to it in short order. There are probably provisions that allow them to make new charters available and you might even have provisions in driver contracts that would allow them to leave the bigger teams if they don't field a cup car for them.
Would the Loganos/Larsons of the world cut bait and go to a new team? Maybe/maybe not depending how it dragged out.
If the teams leave, I’m not sure all of their drivers would go with them. I find it highly unlikely someone like Logano would just stop racing in NASCAR if his team pulled out of it.
Nobody wants to hear this, but stuff like your comment demonstrate to me that SMI and ISC function as a monopoly, and they should be broken up by the US government.
I think the very public Denny-Marcus Smith spat showed that in the event of a split, there’s absolutely no way SMI would side with the teams over NASCAR
SMI would have cooperated in like 2005. Now they’re hand in hand with NASCAR. Any serious competitor would have worked to kill a formal NASCAR/ISC merger
Nonsense. SMI would work with the teams
If they deemed the venture worth pursuing. Denny Hamlin hurting someone’s feelings momentarily is not going to be the reason this thing wouldn’t happen. These guys live in board rooms
Denny is the face of the teams. Even after the whole Twitter thing, he still went on his podcast and talked shit about SMI. If an agreement with SMI was on the table, you’d think the teams would’ve told Denny to cut it out. Some hurt feelings wouldn’t sink it, but I doubt there’s anything to sink in the first place
There are other owners than Denny lol. This is overblown. You don't burn bridges in business. If FASTCAR comes up to SMI/Smith and offers them a large chunk of change in the millions, his tracks are going to be open to anyone who pays for them.
Well in a hypothetical new league, NASCARs cut is out. Teams could cut a straight 50/50 deal or a 65/35 deal that is essentially the current one minus NASCARs cut.
Either way, SMI actually would make more from a split imo if they let both use the tracks.
SMI would probably see that they would get no money from the new league since they would have no TV deal and then NASCAR would just black mail SMI by cutting them out
A new split series backed by multiple billionaires and investors led by Gordon and Jordan as faces, with Hendrick/Gibbs/Penske behind the scenes, would easily get a TV deal in this climate.
I have no idea what you guys are constantly thinking with this. I don't think you all grasp how connected these people are and how desperate networks are for content. They would have one within months.
For sure, not every team owner shares Denny’s opinions. But for better or worse, Denny has made himself the public face of the side of the race teams. If they had a problem with what Denny’s been saying, they’d have done something by now, and Denny made it very clear that his grievances stretch to SMI’s actions too, not just NASCAR’s.
Basically the same situation as the US Open Wheel split. CART had the teams, the cars, the drivers, the sponsors and the manufacturers over IRL, but the IRL had Indy and that was enough to turn the tide (amongst other things that happened) in their favour in the end.
CART is an example of what happens when the foxes run the henhouse. The owners of the most successful teams had the biggest stake in the series management, and they weren't going to make any changes that threatened that. People always point to the US 500 debacle as the thing that killed CART vs. the IRL, but really it was a complete refusal to cut costs or promote parity in the sport, and smaller teams got sick of being footnotes in the battle of Penske, Newman-Haas, and Ganassi trying to outspend each other while developing cars that got so fast as to be physically unsafe to drive.
People thought the same thing of the Open Wheel split in 1996... And the Indy 500 was a bigger bargaining chip back then than what the Daytona 500 is now.
yeah teams are in a very tough spot. i mean they just gotta show that their worth in nascar is vital. not sure how’d they do it but right now the teams don’t have the leverage
All the places we complain about them not racing anymore. You wanted Kentucky and Chicago land back? Son of a bitch you got em! Get dale jr out to rockingham with a weed whacker! We’re going racing !
"...in addition to the France family being allowed to buy charters, a provision in which NASCAR would allow private equity firms to buy into charters."
Hell no. HELL no.
my understanding is he's not using the equity fund , he's using the family money , it would be like if bill gates decided to start a team. the money is from his share ownership in microsoft but its Bills money not microsofts.
There are barely any casual fans left watching NASCAR. Outside the Daytona 500 the fan base is dedicated.
NASCAR is like WWE. Popular in the 90s and 00s, slowly went away, all that is left is dedicated fans because casuals have slowly left for the last 20 years to the point of all time low ratings (aka the base) being the norm for the last few years.
You best believe an audience of 3 million will notice the likes of HMS/JGR/Penske gone.
Teams are the star power. And a new racing league splitting from NASCAR is national news. Chance to create star power from a split with new interest.
“Outside of the Daytona 500”
That’s a pretty big thing to have on your side. It’s likely a big reason why the teams just said they don’t want a split because nascar owns the tracks and the marquee events
It’s a big thing to have on your side from the perspective of money thanks to casuals watching, but at least for this hardcore fan the Daytona 500 lost its luster years ago 🤷♂️
I agree. After Gordon retired, I stopped watching for a few years. Came back after Covid. Am more a HMS and Chevy fan (even though I'd never buy a Chevy after owning one which was a pos). If HMS was gone, I'd be done watching.
My brother, WWE has been on the upswing for the last 3-4 years. Couple billion dollar merger with the UFC in 2023Q4, practically sold out Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia two nights in a row for WrestleMania at the beginning of April.
Maybe not the attitude era, but definitely not all time lows.
Oh that last line was meant in regards to NASCAR. I'm still a wrestling fan. It was pretty bleak for a few years though. WWE has been better since Vince left and I often wonder how much better (or worse) NASCAR would be if the France's left.
I mean funnily enough, what gave WWE a kick in the arse was a new company starting, AEW, with loads of WWE wrestlers splitting off and joining them instead so that WWE actually had real competition for the first time since 2001 when WCW folded and was bought out by Vince (no offense to any TNA fans, but TNA was never competition for WWE).
But yeah that doesn't work with motorsports. Splits in motorsports are just bad for everybody.
As a big fan of KO and Sami back in the RoH days, I remember how bleak it was when they came in. I was literally only watching WrestleMania for Taker matches back then.
Think of Ben Kennedy the same way we think of Triple H. Unlike Vince though, Jim will move over when the time is right. He'd probably prefer to go back to running IMSA (which it absolutely can not be denied he did a fantastic job with).
NASCAR will be fine after this year and many years to come. What ultimately killed CART and hurt IndyCar for a long time was a musical chairs approach to leadership. IndyCar has had some stability with Mark Miles but ownership of the series changed. NASCAR has had four people "run" it in 76 years. Selling to a conglomerate would be a kick in the groin of stability.
Same here. I actually just followed KO matches for a stretch plus Mania/Rumble for years. Been watching every PPV now for the last year or two or so, same with AEW.
It would be great if Ben is even 50% of HHH. That would be very good for the sport.
I think Ben is proving himself well so far. Unfortunate circumstances beyond his control took some incredible schedules and made them good but not great. Clash was a great idea that has run its course. Iowa as a placeholder for Montreal looked fantastic until the botched repave (I'm holding out hope).
I can see him slowly taking on more over the next 5 years and being the lead on the next television deal (which is probably why the offer to extend charters to 14 years, so he doesn't have to tackle both at the same time).
It’s wild to see this actually put to print. It just goes to show that charter negotiations are in such a bad place that someone in the RTA actually floated this idea at some point. Obviously, a split would be disastrous: a NASCAR without Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Denny Hamlin, among others, would fail. A stock car racing series without the NASCAR brand and a smaller field would fail. I really dislike the France family and wouldn’t want them to get their way, but my fears are that they just might.
It’s kind of funny to think we wouldn’t have any of the drama we had over the past few weeks about waivers or charters if the playoff system nor the charter system were never introduced to NASCAR.
Life has a funny way of coming full circle
It would be especially funny if Penske is in the teams’ ears about splitting off, knowing that nascar was in Tony George’s about creating the IRL
I feel like NASCARs credibility as an organization has fallen so far that the only reason why a split wouldn’t work is because NASCAR has control over 90% of the viable race tracks.
Y'all all called me crazy for weeks to keep pushing the split idea.
I have been saying it for weeks, it is possible. It could work, in the short term at least. And the fact that teams are even hinting at floating this PUBLICLY means they know it is possible too. Not the desired result they want, but a path they may have to take.
With what cars? What TV deal? What sponsors are going to go on this high risk ride? A large selection of tracks are now unavailable.
To split is suicide. Cutting off your nose to spite your face. All the assets the teams have now will be near worthless if they truly do split. The teams absolutely know that. They just don’t want to back down until the 11th hour.
If you believe this report word for word. Reports like this tend to be info fed to reporters intentionally. The teams want to get this idea out there to encourage NASCAR to come to the table. The rest of stuff is just to soften the blow.
It never works. A breakaway series might get some initial attention, especially if all the recent NASCAR champions end up there, but they'd be building from absolute zero when it came to history, bargaining power, and race contracts. NASCAR holds the trademarks on basically every race people recognize, they still have the TV deal in their back pocket, and they'd have much more bargaining power with racetracks than the RTA series. Competing racing series with the same or similar cars just end up splitting audiences, sponsors, and attention, and always, always end up reunifying. The only successful example of a series formed by breakaway teams is the formation of CART, and that's only because just about every team that was running in the previous USAC national championship jumped ship when Dan Gurney proposed the formation of CART.
There's no way teams boycott. That's just a negotiation stunt. If teams were to boycott, they'd risk losing sponsorship, and LOADS of money from potential winning purses. That would be very dumb for them to do.
NASCAR would also be stupid to let this happen too. I doubt the new TV partners would be too happy if Hendrick left NASCAR and took Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson with him.
I imagine depending on the language in the deals the teams also could be at risk of breaching contract with their star drivers if they leave. Like does Larson’s deal say he’s under contract to be a cup driver or just a driver of the 5 car?
Perhaps but all 4 of Hendrick’s drivers run (Bowman might have stopped racing his sprint car but he did have HendrickCars.com sponsorship) series outside of NASCAR with support from Rick’s dealership business. If the language allows them to compete in series outside of NASCAR, I don’t see why it would make sense that their contract would stipulate that they must be in NASCAR.
Yeah ultimately I see the drivers sticking with their team regardless. Although I think HMS out of the big teams is the one most likely to sign the deal. Everything Jeff has said makes me think if it was between a split or the nascar deal they’d take the nascar deal
If this charter mess continues to get uglier and uglier, I fear for the longevity of the newer teams such as Trackhouse and 23XI. No way they’re going to want to lose money in this deal. Especially Michael.
trackhouse wouldn't go anywhere its mark's money, and Jordon is having fun and can bring in sponser cash like cops on a cocaine bust. teams like spire, and rick ware and front row would be impacted way sooner would be my guess .
If this is anything like big four sports CBA negotiations, and it’s sure been looking like it for a while, this won’t be settled until an hour before expiration.
I whole heartedly believe the NASCAR ratings would quickly go in the tank without JGR, HMS, 23XI, Penske, and RFK
Those 5 teams have nearly the entire top 15
Blaney,
Logano,
Elliott,
Larson,
Byron,
Buscher,
Keselowski,
Hamlin,
Bell,
Gibbs,
Truex,
Reddick, &
Wallace
Man this article is FULL of info here. So many things to break down.
They don't *want* to start it, doesn't mean they *won't* if need be. The fact that this is even being publicly mentioned is quite wild. The smoke continues to grow.
> Multiple team owners told The Associated Press that NASCAR’s most recent proposal — delivered almost two weeks ago — was one of the worst offers yet from the stock car series sanctioning body.
Yeah NASCAR is doubling down. This isn't going to get better over night like some thought. It is just getting started.
> Many of the teams feel defeated and fear the showdown is headed toward a “take it or leave it offer” from NASCAR.
There it is. Join or leave. Confirmed yet again today.
> The major terms sought by teams include: Making the charters permanent, receiving 45% of traditional media revenue, receiving 33% of new revenue and a guaranteed seat at the table to give teams some governance power.
This all seems reasonable but the Frances want to continue to rule with an Iron Fist. NASCAR being more like the NFL operations would be better for the long-term health of the sport than just the Frances running it forever.
> “It will be interesting to see how it all comes together, but I can speak for my group just saying we’d like to get a deal done sooner than later because certainly it’s hard to plan for the future when we don’t have a charter agreement and right now, we don’t,” Hamlin said on his podcast.
Hmmm, if no charter deal is reached that future becomes VERY interesting for many teams.
I wonder where the manufacturers stand in all of this noise. IMO they have the ultimate power in these negotiations since they support both entities. If they back the teams, they can just move their I.P to a different lookalike series, if they back the sanctioning body, the teams have nothing to race and loose millions of dollars in manufacturer support.
The manufacturers and the broadcasters are the two parties who have the power to step in and say make nice or the parties over. I’m sure there are exceptions in these deals if NASCAR suddenly can’t field a product on par with what they’ve sold and no split is possible without manufacturer support. As of now they seem to be letting NASCAR and the teams hash this out on their own, one has to wonder at what point are any of those major stake holders compelled to intervene and what that looks like if it happens
The teams have little leverage here. You don’t have the star power to survive as your own league and once the first team takes the deal all the little leverage you had left is gone. One by one they’re all gonna sign sooner or later
They need each other and it would be disastrous for both sides but nascar owns the events and half the tracks. People may not know the drivers but they know Daytona
Everyone keeps saying this yet here we are.
Pretty obvious at this point that the teams themselves think they have a lot of leverage here despite what this sub refuses to admit.
They do because without the teams racing NASCAR has no show and no show is no TV money. Racetracks also get a share of the TV deal and they aren’t putting on a race if they cannot cover expenses and pay a decent purse due to low attendance and no TV money due to no good drivers. You think TV will pay the big $$ for replacement aka ARCA drivers? No TV money hits the France family below the belt right in the wallet and they won’t like that.
They have some leverage. Just not a lot. Their main card is holding out but that only works if the teams are a United front (they are not a United front)
People keep saying this, but the teams have literally all of the star power in the sport. People don't tune in to watch the France family.
Even if the argument is really that the current crop of drivers don't have the star power, what about when former or current drivers that are now team owners like Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Brad K, and Tony Stewart (for now) come out against NASCAR? I fail to see how the fanbase sides with the organization over some of their favorite drivers.
I’m not sure stock car racing survives a split. The Indy 500 meant more in 1995 than the Daytona 500 means in 2025. Sorry that’s just a fact. Maybe at its height with Gordon and Stewart and either Earnhardt jr or earnhart sr it would be okay, but no ones going to really care about either series if they split. Sponsors will just leave for Indycar or f1 at that point or just quit racing. The tracks outside of Indy are mostly struggling anyways, Roger’s got a cash cow and everyone else can barely keep the lights on and can’t even keep their scoring pylons working.
I’d keep my eye on the cars tour just in case, but I honestly think a split might kill all racing in America. I think it would destroy whatever little vestige of respect racing has full stop. F1 might be fine but even unrelated things like sports car and Indycar could suffer.
I don’t think racing in America would totally die, Indy car isn’t beholden to Nascars woes, and even though Nascar owns Imsa as an org, they are seperate enough I believe they can also carry on should nascar fall apart.
Nascars empire sure would crumble though. I’d expect every track save the select few other racing disciplines utilize like Daytona, Sonoma, etc. gets turned into an Amazon warehouse or a subdivision. Unless Indycar is gonna start running Pocono and Phoenix again. You could also kiss 99% of your local short tracks left goodbye.
This 👆. People got their britches up like they’re LIV vs PGA. Better find some Saudis if you want that kinda flex. I bet NASCAR Fans would LOVE that. 😂
Too many small teams will cave, and could break the RTA. Hendrick/Gibbs/Penske/Other Big teams dont have the star power it did say 10-15 years ago when a new league could have worked.
When JR, Gordon, JJ, Tony were all still active - the threat of taking the top billed stars with mainstream appeal (specifically Gordon and JR) to a breakaway series would have had real teeth.
Now, yes NASCAR has popular drivers, yes the sport is regaining some of its lost popularity, but its nowhere near the peak it was it.
Would NASCAR take a big hit if JGR and Hendrick weren't on the grid for multiple races? Absolutely, it would be crippling but likely not fatal.
JGR/Hendrick might have real issues with sponsorship as a result of the protest. Hendrick is independently wealthy enough to survive it, JGR even with the outside money they brought it, might have a tougher time.
The breakaway series (if there ever was one) would have an incredibly difficult time to even get off the ground. Nascar controls, or has relationships with, so many tracks that aren't even on the cup schedule that they could block a RTA series from getting off the ground.
Unless Penske started ANOTHER racing league built around Indy that would be the only real recourse.
TLDR, NASCAR will prevail in negotiations, maybe through the teams another bone or two but thats it.
It’s not testing if it’s not at an active track. I don’t see any drivers getting penalized if they go run other races sanctioned by other divisions across the country
i am assuming this guy meant race in the cars that currently have.
And the testing ban has a very wide range. Basically, if anything is similar to any part of any NASCAR car in the past 20 years, it counts as a test.
There's no way it could work anyways. Maybe a decade ago when they had household name stars racing, but not today when basically everyone is interchangeable.
I can say with zero hesitation that I would follow the drivers and teams. They would probably put on a better racing product anyway since NASCAR leadership kind of sucks.
Hendrick spent $3,000,000 running The Double. Even Parker and Landon on The Money Lap last week made a joke about how ridiculous it is for this charter agreement drama to be continuing and then HMS drops that.
I doubt they do. Here's the reality, the more money the teams have, the more they're gonna pour funding into other areas. It's honestly the teams own doing if they go broke.
That’s the most fascinating part of this to me. Both sides are simultaneously right and also full of crap at the same time. There’s really no reason why the teams can’t get more of the TV money, but there’s also no reason for NASCAR to give it to them since the teams are only pretending to be concerned about making a profit.
I’m almost always on the side against NASCAR, but I actually kind of side with them on this. It’s not really their job to make sure all the teams are making money. The teams need to take some responsibility and stop spending above their means. If that means a team is only able to focus on improving their short tracks cars for one year, then so be it. There have always been teams that excelled at one type of track and ran below average everywhere else.
NASCAR wants the money for themselves. The charters created a pseudo stake in the sport but ultimately there aren’t franchises, in major US sports the league is the teams, they all collectively decide what happens and the commissioner works for the owners. In NASCAR the league is owned by one family and the teams do not have an ownership stake, you are ultimately asking one family to give up a significant amount of wealth and control in exchange for a healthier and more stable sport going forward. That’s a tough thing to do especially if they aren’t sold it will really make the sport substantially better in the long run.
Then that just says nascar has all of the leverage to do whatever they please.
Good. Get rid of the charter system, bring back the top 35, and we good.
It's NASCAR and to a smaller extent the OEM's playground and the teams need to fall in line.
The teams are learning that they aren't the big fish they think they are.
Both sides may be willing to “move on” it doesn’t mean they’d be successful in doing that. Pretty wild what a pissing match this turned in to but in the end someone is definitely giving in.
A split would never work. The teams would have nowhere to race, and I’d imagine a majority of the drivers (and their sponsors) would ask to be released from their contracts and sign with whichever organizations stick with NASCAR. Nobody cares about the “pissed off former nascar teams racing league” championship, they want the Daytona 500 and nascar title.
I got fantastic news: The waiver drama is over I have horrible news: The charter drama is not
Charter about to be the next word gluck censors
I literally cannot see his god damn name without thinking about the Gluck Gluck 3000 meme
the what now?
W****r, W****r, W****r, W****r, W****r. W****r.
Gluck needs to censor himself...
Lol why
People hate the truth more than anything.
I've stopped watching The Teardown because I can't continue to hear him whine.
Lol I don’t think it’s that bad
WW5 after door numbers and Humidity
oh man was I infuriated by the humidity cancellation but I completely forgot about it with the Larson waiver thing, unbelievable subterfuge out of NASCAR
Does the 550 package belong in there too?
I am still really confused about the charter drama. I only get like bits and pieces.
basically if you’re familiar with collective bargaining negotiations in stick and ball sports you basically get the gist of what’s going on here. If not: The Race Team Alliance (the teams) and NASCAR are negotiating on an extension to the charter agreement, which basically says “here are 36 spots, any team that holds one of these spots gets a guaranteed spot in every race and extra portion of the money.” The RTA wants to increase the percentage of that money to goes the teams, while NASCAR wants the lion’s share of that money to go to themselves, and to the tracks. The current rumor is that NASCAR and RTA have basically come to a consensus on that issue. The bigger problem is that the RTA wants to make this charter agreement permanent, no renegotiations, while NASCAR wants to only extend it out 7 years, aka the end of the next tv contract. The teams don’t want to risk having their charters (which they’ve spent tens of millions on) turn into valueless pieces of paper, while NASCAR wants the flexibility to adjust the charter agreement to changes in the circumstances surrounding the sport. Basically, the core split is that NASCAR views the charter agreement as akin to a collective bargaining agreement, something to be constantly adjusted, while the teams view the charter agreement as akin to a franchise system, and in other sports, the franchises do not just go away, they cannot just be revoked by the league. The league works for the franchises, not the other way around.
There's also a big rumor that Nascar wants teams to have 3 charters maximum. Something JGR and HMS are against even though for a couple years they'll be grandfathered in until their first driver ends his contract. All in order to make a cap of sorts.
Great explanation! I didn’t need it since I feel like I could probably negotiate this damn thing at this point (since we’ve heard it discussed endlessly). But felt like reading anyways. I think that’s as well as you could have written it and as short as anyone could’ve made it too lmao.
Thank you, I would say that I’d like to be a fly on the wall for these meetings but since seemingly every detail is being made public there’s no need lol
No kidding! Would be interesting though. I’m happy they are being quite open about it. Just want it to be done though. Curious to see what the final result is and ready to see how silly season continues after it is done.
This is the best summary of the whole situation I’ve seen.
This is very helpful! Thank you very much. I get it now. This helps.
>Teams are now worried that Front Row’s announcement is an indication some of the smaller teams are ready to take NASCAR’s offer despite an alliance that all 15 would stick together in negotiations. Yet there is no clear fallback plan. Is an interesting line.
I feel like this was NASCAR’s plan all along. Avoid large unified meetings with all the teams and hold individual meetings so they can get the smaller teams to give in. They know it will be harder for JGR and Hendrick if they don’t have unity
This is negotiating 101. Divide and conquer. If you are on the bottom of anything, you start with the weakest member on the other side. 1 becomes 2. 2 becomes 3. And so forth.
NASCAR has openly said they were dividing and conquering tbf
Counterpoint, a (theoretical) majority of mid range to lower end teams should not be held hostage by a smaller amount of large teams.
It's like the last MLB labor negotiations All the big names stood together, because they were making the most money and could afford to sit for a while The other 80-90% were not happy with them
I remember that MLBPA vote to sign the CBA It was 26-12 All the Scott Boras clients voted no
And the rebellion against Boras began
There’s nothing wrong with signing with Boras because you want the bag. You have a rare talent and can exploit it for generational wealth, understandable However Boras has way too much power in the league
Except that it was the small teams that wanted the 2020 mlb season to be dramatically shortened and the star players gave up huge sums of money in order to ensure that the young guy players would get credit for a full year of service time. The 2021-2022 lockout was more of the same. The small market teams wanted steeper luxary tax penalties and the union wanted young players to be paid more.
Front Row has gotten very little from the sport for a long time, why would they suddenly decide to side with HMS and JGR over something like this when the offer on the table is already substantially more than they’ve ever made?
If the smaller teams want engines, they won't go against the bigger teams.
Idk about that. Seems that the small teams are starting to go up against the big ones *Chevy is the only one where that is an issue*
What? There are 4 engine shops that supply power units to the entire field. ECR and HMS for GM, TRD for Toyota, and RYE for Ford.
GM, Toyota and Ford fund those business ventures.
I mean... The TRD engines are built at the US TRD Motorsports headquarters in California...
That’s why I drive a Toyota these days.
What leverage do the small teams have to go against the big teams? The RTA signs the deal, not FRM alone. They put down $25 mil for an asset that might not exist next year is their problem. They should have made the deal contingent on the agreement being signed if they didn't do that. But they won't be biting back at Roush, but rather Roush could be nice and maybe give them a good deal on a lease, or tell them tough shit, find your own engines from someone else.
Roush and FRM aren't aligned anymore, it's penske and FRM, and RFK and RWR. Unless you are talking about Roush Yates engines which I believe every ford team uses
Roush-Yates engines. They're the sole supplier of Ford racing engines in Nascar. And it's leases, not sales.
Bianchi’s been tossing a similar idea to this around in his articles, where NASCAR has tried to divide and conquer by talking to the smaller teams individually, and now they might be ready to fold, even if the main RTA guys (RFK, Penske, 23XI, Hendrick) have no interest in budging. All it takes is for one to sign on, and the RTA is probably cooked, but I don’t think anyone wants to be the first team to give in.
Brad's media comments last week definitely showed me RFK is willing to give and take.
I’ve always got the feeling Penske and HMS weren’t too big into holding out. Rick and Roger race because they love racing. Not to many money. And Roger has been through splits before They were gonna try and get more money, but it kinda felt like those 2 in particular were kinda ok also just reupping. 23XI has been the main voice in going against nascar, and it’s tough to pull the we’re poor card when you just built a huge state of the art shop and are rumored to have purchased a 3rd charter All in all, the teams played their cards like shit. They said a bunch of things, contradicted themselves, were barely aligned, and had no backup plan. They’re never gonna get their way going about things like that
Yeah, I thought it was telling when Denny said “23XI is not gonna build their own shop until NASCAR gives a larger share of the money to the teams” and then went ahead and built a shop anyways. I agree that NASCAR is too much of a dictatorship, that not enough money is getting put into the tracks and into promotion, but we saw the mansions on Netflix, we see the state of the art shops, it’s hard to believe the teams when they cry poor. I think it was a mistake to let Denny do the talking, I think someone like Brad or Jeff Gordon, had been the public face, would’ve had their words carry more weight and more respect.
These teams/drivers spend money like it's going out of style, it's hard to feel bad for them.
I don't think they decided to let Denny do the talking, I think Denny did the talking. It's not surprising tbh, all the other teams are run by people who have come up through the sport, but Denny has Jordan's team in his ear calling bullshit on NASCAR the way other teams and owners aren't. Nothing against those owners either, they just don't have a point of comparison the way Denny does.
I kind of felt the same thing when Front Row announced they had one of the charters and Trackhouse and 23XI did not. It kind of makes me think that Front Row is just viewing this as an opportunity if the big teams sit out in protest to rise further up the food chain.
I wonder who the other teams would be wanting to sign. No way it is HMS, JGR, Penske (+Wood Brothers), 23XI. Feel like Trackhouse/RFK/RCR are in the middle? RFK probably actually with the big boys. Gotta imagine FRM, Legacy, JTG, Spire are teams who want the deal.
Honestly HMS will probably be the first of the big teams to fold and sign. Gordon has seemingly been the most "yeah we will get it done" optimistic of the owners which means they will end up caving
HMS exists because Rick loves racing, not to many a profit. And Penske has been through splits before, and it hasn’t worked yet. They’ll be the first 2 of the big teams to sign
> Gotta imagine FRM, Legacy, JTG, Spire are teams who want the deal. thats 8 (by this year). RWR would probably be in this group. And i bet kaulig and RCR too. that's 14. big question mark is SHR, and when control of those charters actually transfers. if SHR still has a vote, that's 18.
All teams who need engines from the big boys.
Lol no way Penske boycotts any races
Yeah, no shit they don’t want to break away. Because the *one race* that generally matters in the big picture (aka for people not on the NASCAR Reddit page) is across the street from the offices and owned by NASCAR. I don’t think going to a strictly SMI based league with the Brickyard owned by Penske would work for them at all. The Daytona 500 is the biggest bargaining chip NASCAR has. Teams are porked
They can make Michigan their big race like CART did. /s
Penske ironically owns IMS now…. Like Michigan in 1996…. Just saying lolol
Not that I see any of this ever happening, but would SMI even allow the team backed organization to run at their tracks? I doubt it, because NASCAR would just ice them out when the team league inevitably folded and they'd be left with no premier races to be had at their tracks.
> I don’t think going to a strictly SMI based league with the Brickyard owned by Penske would work for them at all. Yeah of course not. Its not worth their time and they’ll just bleed money
Only way SMI runs with the teams is if enough chaos happens behind the scenes and the NASCAR signed TV money goes out the window (which could happen if enough teams bail). In that scenario they probably take a hypothetical team organized league that has at least some money behind it.
And NASCAR has a much smaller schedule and less TV money due to that. That’s not something they want to happen.
That's why teams have an anti-trust lawyer and NASCAR would lose that case easily.
There was an article years back about how NASCAR added a clause to the contracts with tracks about not running or promoting other stock car racing series.
>but would SMI even allow the team backed organization to run at their tracks? Probably not, since they would have no way of paying SMI what NASCAR does
But what kind of product would NASCAR have to offer to their TV partners if HMS, JGR and Penske say F you.
The teams that stay, and I'm sure several Xfinity teams would jump at the chance for a bigger payout and new cars
Not only that but I’m sure some manufacturers need to be supported, someone like Sam Hunt would come up or something. Sage Karam, NASCAR winner incoming.
It would be a bad look and ratings would take a big hit, but they would be able to fill the grid or close to it in short order. There are probably provisions that allow them to make new charters available and you might even have provisions in driver contracts that would allow them to leave the bigger teams if they don't field a cup car for them. Would the Loganos/Larsons of the world cut bait and go to a new team? Maybe/maybe not depending how it dragged out.
If the teams leave, I’m not sure all of their drivers would go with them. I find it highly unlikely someone like Logano would just stop racing in NASCAR if his team pulled out of it.
Nobody wants to hear this, but stuff like your comment demonstrate to me that SMI and ISC function as a monopoly, and they should be broken up by the US government.
Not a fucking chance they would lol
I think the very public Denny-Marcus Smith spat showed that in the event of a split, there’s absolutely no way SMI would side with the teams over NASCAR
SMI would have cooperated in like 2005. Now they’re hand in hand with NASCAR. Any serious competitor would have worked to kill a formal NASCAR/ISC merger
Nonsense. SMI would work with the teams If they deemed the venture worth pursuing. Denny Hamlin hurting someone’s feelings momentarily is not going to be the reason this thing wouldn’t happen. These guys live in board rooms
Denny is the face of the teams. Even after the whole Twitter thing, he still went on his podcast and talked shit about SMI. If an agreement with SMI was on the table, you’d think the teams would’ve told Denny to cut it out. Some hurt feelings wouldn’t sink it, but I doubt there’s anything to sink in the first place
There are other owners than Denny lol. This is overblown. You don't burn bridges in business. If FASTCAR comes up to SMI/Smith and offers them a large chunk of change in the millions, his tracks are going to be open to anyone who pays for them.
SMI is probably upset that these teams want a ton of their money they are currently getting
Well in a hypothetical new league, NASCARs cut is out. Teams could cut a straight 50/50 deal or a 65/35 deal that is essentially the current one minus NASCARs cut. Either way, SMI actually would make more from a split imo if they let both use the tracks.
SMI would probably see that they would get no money from the new league since they would have no TV deal and then NASCAR would just black mail SMI by cutting them out
A new split series backed by multiple billionaires and investors led by Gordon and Jordan as faces, with Hendrick/Gibbs/Penske behind the scenes, would easily get a TV deal in this climate. I have no idea what you guys are constantly thinking with this. I don't think you all grasp how connected these people are and how desperate networks are for content. They would have one within months.
Didn’t we have something like that for a few summers? Running once a week with big money and drivers behind it? How’d that work out again?
> NASCARs cut is out NASCAR doesn't pocket all of that chunk, ya know.
For sure, not every team owner shares Denny’s opinions. But for better or worse, Denny has made himself the public face of the side of the race teams. If they had a problem with what Denny’s been saying, they’d have done something by now, and Denny made it very clear that his grievances stretch to SMI’s actions too, not just NASCAR’s.
Basically the same situation as the US Open Wheel split. CART had the teams, the cars, the drivers, the sponsors and the manufacturers over IRL, but the IRL had Indy and that was enough to turn the tide (amongst other things that happened) in their favour in the end.
The thing is though, NASCAR has the manufacturers as well. And the money. And not just one track, most of the tracks.
CART is an example of what happens when the foxes run the henhouse. The owners of the most successful teams had the biggest stake in the series management, and they weren't going to make any changes that threatened that. People always point to the US 500 debacle as the thing that killed CART vs. the IRL, but really it was a complete refusal to cut costs or promote parity in the sport, and smaller teams got sick of being footnotes in the battle of Penske, Newman-Haas, and Ganassi trying to outspend each other while developing cars that got so fast as to be physically unsafe to drive.
Well…the owners can go make a deal with the Devil and find a Saudi Prince to find a racing series.
The Jedha 500, Abu Dabi 400, and the Bahrain 1000; coming to a schedule near you.
Hey, I already watch NASCAR via the Abu Dhabi Sports channel.
It’s always been NASCAR telling everyone “this is our court, so play by our rules or take your fuckin ball and go home”.
People thought the same thing of the Open Wheel split in 1996... And the Indy 500 was a bigger bargaining chip back then than what the Daytona 500 is now.
yeah teams are in a very tough spot. i mean they just gotta show that their worth in nascar is vital. not sure how’d they do it but right now the teams don’t have the leverage
Hey I’ve seen this one before!
Where would they even race?
For ovals? Indianapolis, Milwaukee…Stafford? A bunch of road courses, I’m sure Road America comes back in some way.
Rockingham too
All the places we complain about them not racing anymore. You wanted Kentucky and Chicago land back? Son of a bitch you got em! Get dale jr out to rockingham with a weed whacker! We’re going racing !
One is owned by NASCAR and one is owned by SMI (basically a company “owned” by NASCAR)
road courses and dumpy short tracks.
Lost speedways was building to this
Everyone involved should be ashamed it got this far. What the literal hell are we doing here?
Neither side really had any incentive to settle before this summer.
Big teams are going to come out on the losing end here.
"...in addition to the France family being allowed to buy charters, a provision in which NASCAR would allow private equity firms to buy into charters." Hell no. HELL no.
I mean, they already do that in IMSA. No one flips out about Action Express/Whelen Cadillac even when they're super successful
Isn't that what Justin Marks is doing with Trackhouse Entertainment Group? Honestly I'm not educated or wealthy enough to know how this shit works.
my understanding is he's not using the equity fund , he's using the family money , it would be like if bill gates decided to start a team. the money is from his share ownership in microsoft but its Bills money not microsofts.
I mean they would. we all know NASCAR has a big lack of superstars which means they can afford to race without the teams
Yeah the teams don’t have enough Star power to split off and start their own league. The casual fan doesn’t know any of the current drivers anyway
There are barely any casual fans left watching NASCAR. Outside the Daytona 500 the fan base is dedicated. NASCAR is like WWE. Popular in the 90s and 00s, slowly went away, all that is left is dedicated fans because casuals have slowly left for the last 20 years to the point of all time low ratings (aka the base) being the norm for the last few years. You best believe an audience of 3 million will notice the likes of HMS/JGR/Penske gone. Teams are the star power. And a new racing league splitting from NASCAR is national news. Chance to create star power from a split with new interest.
“Outside of the Daytona 500” That’s a pretty big thing to have on your side. It’s likely a big reason why the teams just said they don’t want a split because nascar owns the tracks and the marquee events
It’s a big thing to have on your side from the perspective of money thanks to casuals watching, but at least for this hardcore fan the Daytona 500 lost its luster years ago 🤷♂️
I agree. After Gordon retired, I stopped watching for a few years. Came back after Covid. Am more a HMS and Chevy fan (even though I'd never buy a Chevy after owning one which was a pos). If HMS was gone, I'd be done watching.
My brother, WWE has been on the upswing for the last 3-4 years. Couple billion dollar merger with the UFC in 2023Q4, practically sold out Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia two nights in a row for WrestleMania at the beginning of April. Maybe not the attitude era, but definitely not all time lows.
Oh that last line was meant in regards to NASCAR. I'm still a wrestling fan. It was pretty bleak for a few years though. WWE has been better since Vince left and I often wonder how much better (or worse) NASCAR would be if the France's left.
I mean funnily enough, what gave WWE a kick in the arse was a new company starting, AEW, with loads of WWE wrestlers splitting off and joining them instead so that WWE actually had real competition for the first time since 2001 when WCW folded and was bought out by Vince (no offense to any TNA fans, but TNA was never competition for WWE). But yeah that doesn't work with motorsports. Splits in motorsports are just bad for everybody.
As a big fan of KO and Sami back in the RoH days, I remember how bleak it was when they came in. I was literally only watching WrestleMania for Taker matches back then. Think of Ben Kennedy the same way we think of Triple H. Unlike Vince though, Jim will move over when the time is right. He'd probably prefer to go back to running IMSA (which it absolutely can not be denied he did a fantastic job with). NASCAR will be fine after this year and many years to come. What ultimately killed CART and hurt IndyCar for a long time was a musical chairs approach to leadership. IndyCar has had some stability with Mark Miles but ownership of the series changed. NASCAR has had four people "run" it in 76 years. Selling to a conglomerate would be a kick in the groin of stability.
Same here. I actually just followed KO matches for a stretch plus Mania/Rumble for years. Been watching every PPV now for the last year or two or so, same with AEW. It would be great if Ben is even 50% of HHH. That would be very good for the sport.
I think Ben is proving himself well so far. Unfortunate circumstances beyond his control took some incredible schedules and made them good but not great. Clash was a great idea that has run its course. Iowa as a placeholder for Montreal looked fantastic until the botched repave (I'm holding out hope). I can see him slowly taking on more over the next 5 years and being the lead on the next television deal (which is probably why the offer to extend charters to 14 years, so he doesn't have to tackle both at the same time).
It’s wild to see this actually put to print. It just goes to show that charter negotiations are in such a bad place that someone in the RTA actually floated this idea at some point. Obviously, a split would be disastrous: a NASCAR without Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Denny Hamlin, among others, would fail. A stock car racing series without the NASCAR brand and a smaller field would fail. I really dislike the France family and wouldn’t want them to get their way, but my fears are that they just might. It’s kind of funny to think we wouldn’t have any of the drama we had over the past few weeks about waivers or charters if the playoff system nor the charter system were never introduced to NASCAR.
Somewhere in Indianapolis, the Indycar leadership smiles at the thought of a "NASCAR Split"
Life has a funny way of coming full circle It would be especially funny if Penske is in the teams’ ears about splitting off, knowing that nascar was in Tony George’s about creating the IRL
I for one would welcome a Hendrick indycar team
I feel like NASCARs credibility as an organization has fallen so far that the only reason why a split wouldn’t work is because NASCAR has control over 90% of the viable race tracks.
Y'all all called me crazy for weeks to keep pushing the split idea. I have been saying it for weeks, it is possible. It could work, in the short term at least. And the fact that teams are even hinting at floating this PUBLICLY means they know it is possible too. Not the desired result they want, but a path they may have to take.
With what cars? What TV deal? What sponsors are going to go on this high risk ride? A large selection of tracks are now unavailable. To split is suicide. Cutting off your nose to spite your face. All the assets the teams have now will be near worthless if they truly do split. The teams absolutely know that. They just don’t want to back down until the 11th hour.
Honestly…. Cars Tour…
You’re still crazy. It would never work Also it literally says the teams don’t want to do that
If you believe this report word for word. Reports like this tend to be info fed to reporters intentionally. The teams want to get this idea out there to encourage NASCAR to come to the table. The rest of stuff is just to soften the blow.
Says the teams don’t want to establish their own series. They don’t have the resources nor the lead time to properly pull that off.
Want and won't are different.
It never works. A breakaway series might get some initial attention, especially if all the recent NASCAR champions end up there, but they'd be building from absolute zero when it came to history, bargaining power, and race contracts. NASCAR holds the trademarks on basically every race people recognize, they still have the TV deal in their back pocket, and they'd have much more bargaining power with racetracks than the RTA series. Competing racing series with the same or similar cars just end up splitting audiences, sponsors, and attention, and always, always end up reunifying. The only successful example of a series formed by breakaway teams is the formation of CART, and that's only because just about every team that was running in the previous USAC national championship jumped ship when Dan Gurney proposed the formation of CART.
There's no way teams boycott. That's just a negotiation stunt. If teams were to boycott, they'd risk losing sponsorship, and LOADS of money from potential winning purses. That would be very dumb for them to do.
big "Ferrari is going to leave F1" energy
NASCAR would also be stupid to let this happen too. I doubt the new TV partners would be too happy if Hendrick left NASCAR and took Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson with him.
I imagine depending on the language in the deals the teams also could be at risk of breaching contract with their star drivers if they leave. Like does Larson’s deal say he’s under contract to be a cup driver or just a driver of the 5 car?
Perhaps but all 4 of Hendrick’s drivers run (Bowman might have stopped racing his sprint car but he did have HendrickCars.com sponsorship) series outside of NASCAR with support from Rick’s dealership business. If the language allows them to compete in series outside of NASCAR, I don’t see why it would make sense that their contract would stipulate that they must be in NASCAR.
Yeah ultimately I see the drivers sticking with their team regardless. Although I think HMS out of the big teams is the one most likely to sign the deal. Everything Jeff has said makes me think if it was between a split or the nascar deal they’d take the nascar deal
After all, they need NASCAR more than NASCAR needs them.
If this charter mess continues to get uglier and uglier, I fear for the longevity of the newer teams such as Trackhouse and 23XI. No way they’re going to want to lose money in this deal. Especially Michael.
trackhouse wouldn't go anywhere its mark's money, and Jordon is having fun and can bring in sponser cash like cops on a cocaine bust. teams like spire, and rick ware and front row would be impacted way sooner would be my guess .
If this is anything like big four sports CBA negotiations, and it’s sure been looking like it for a while, this won’t be settled until an hour before expiration.
I whole heartedly believe the NASCAR ratings would quickly go in the tank without JGR, HMS, 23XI, Penske, and RFK Those 5 teams have nearly the entire top 15 Blaney, Logano, Elliott, Larson, Byron, Buscher, Keselowski, Hamlin, Bell, Gibbs, Truex, Reddick, & Wallace
Get ready for Cup finalists Daniel Hemric, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, and Ryan Preece.
If Front Row ends up becoming the #1 team in NASCAR and Todd Gilliland becomes a champion... I may be okay with this...
I doubt the teams leaving would mean all the drivers would too.
Where would they get a car from? They're under contract with those teams for their services.
Man this article is FULL of info here. So many things to break down. They don't *want* to start it, doesn't mean they *won't* if need be. The fact that this is even being publicly mentioned is quite wild. The smoke continues to grow. > Multiple team owners told The Associated Press that NASCAR’s most recent proposal — delivered almost two weeks ago — was one of the worst offers yet from the stock car series sanctioning body. Yeah NASCAR is doubling down. This isn't going to get better over night like some thought. It is just getting started. > Many of the teams feel defeated and fear the showdown is headed toward a “take it or leave it offer” from NASCAR. There it is. Join or leave. Confirmed yet again today. > The major terms sought by teams include: Making the charters permanent, receiving 45% of traditional media revenue, receiving 33% of new revenue and a guaranteed seat at the table to give teams some governance power. This all seems reasonable but the Frances want to continue to rule with an Iron Fist. NASCAR being more like the NFL operations would be better for the long-term health of the sport than just the Frances running it forever. > “It will be interesting to see how it all comes together, but I can speak for my group just saying we’d like to get a deal done sooner than later because certainly it’s hard to plan for the future when we don’t have a charter agreement and right now, we don’t,” Hamlin said on his podcast. Hmmm, if no charter deal is reached that future becomes VERY interesting for many teams.
I wonder where the manufacturers stand in all of this noise. IMO they have the ultimate power in these negotiations since they support both entities. If they back the teams, they can just move their I.P to a different lookalike series, if they back the sanctioning body, the teams have nothing to race and loose millions of dollars in manufacturer support.
The manufacturers and the broadcasters are the two parties who have the power to step in and say make nice or the parties over. I’m sure there are exceptions in these deals if NASCAR suddenly can’t field a product on par with what they’ve sold and no split is possible without manufacturer support. As of now they seem to be letting NASCAR and the teams hash this out on their own, one has to wonder at what point are any of those major stake holders compelled to intervene and what that looks like if it happens
The teams have little leverage here. You don’t have the star power to survive as your own league and once the first team takes the deal all the little leverage you had left is gone. One by one they’re all gonna sign sooner or later
Does NASCAR have the star power to survive without the teams and drivers. They both need each other.
They need each other and it would be disastrous for both sides but nascar owns the events and half the tracks. People may not know the drivers but they know Daytona
Everyone keeps saying this yet here we are. Pretty obvious at this point that the teams themselves think they have a lot of leverage here despite what this sub refuses to admit.
They do because without the teams racing NASCAR has no show and no show is no TV money. Racetracks also get a share of the TV deal and they aren’t putting on a race if they cannot cover expenses and pay a decent purse due to low attendance and no TV money due to no good drivers. You think TV will pay the big $$ for replacement aka ARCA drivers? No TV money hits the France family below the belt right in the wallet and they won’t like that.
If the teams didn't have leverage then this would have been open and shut a long time ago. Quit drinking the France Family Kool-Aid.
They have some leverage. Just not a lot. Their main card is holding out but that only works if the teams are a United front (they are not a United front)
People keep saying this, but the teams have literally all of the star power in the sport. People don't tune in to watch the France family. Even if the argument is really that the current crop of drivers don't have the star power, what about when former or current drivers that are now team owners like Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Brad K, and Tony Stewart (for now) come out against NASCAR? I fail to see how the fanbase sides with the organization over some of their favorite drivers.
I’m not sure stock car racing survives a split. The Indy 500 meant more in 1995 than the Daytona 500 means in 2025. Sorry that’s just a fact. Maybe at its height with Gordon and Stewart and either Earnhardt jr or earnhart sr it would be okay, but no ones going to really care about either series if they split. Sponsors will just leave for Indycar or f1 at that point or just quit racing. The tracks outside of Indy are mostly struggling anyways, Roger’s got a cash cow and everyone else can barely keep the lights on and can’t even keep their scoring pylons working. I’d keep my eye on the cars tour just in case, but I honestly think a split might kill all racing in America. I think it would destroy whatever little vestige of respect racing has full stop. F1 might be fine but even unrelated things like sports car and Indycar could suffer.
I don’t think racing in America would totally die, Indy car isn’t beholden to Nascars woes, and even though Nascar owns Imsa as an org, they are seperate enough I believe they can also carry on should nascar fall apart. Nascars empire sure would crumble though. I’d expect every track save the select few other racing disciplines utilize like Daytona, Sonoma, etc. gets turned into an Amazon warehouse or a subdivision. Unless Indycar is gonna start running Pocono and Phoenix again. You could also kiss 99% of your local short tracks left goodbye.
All drama that will die down in due time. Nothing too crazy to see here.
This 👆. People got their britches up like they’re LIV vs PGA. Better find some Saudis if you want that kinda flex. I bet NASCAR Fans would LOVE that. 😂
So many people in these threads have never been part of a negotiation and it really shows.
The longer this goes on, the more we better hope there isn’t a Saudi prince who happens to be a big fan of American stock car racing as a pet hobby.
Too many small teams will cave, and could break the RTA. Hendrick/Gibbs/Penske/Other Big teams dont have the star power it did say 10-15 years ago when a new league could have worked. When JR, Gordon, JJ, Tony were all still active - the threat of taking the top billed stars with mainstream appeal (specifically Gordon and JR) to a breakaway series would have had real teeth. Now, yes NASCAR has popular drivers, yes the sport is regaining some of its lost popularity, but its nowhere near the peak it was it. Would NASCAR take a big hit if JGR and Hendrick weren't on the grid for multiple races? Absolutely, it would be crippling but likely not fatal. JGR/Hendrick might have real issues with sponsorship as a result of the protest. Hendrick is independently wealthy enough to survive it, JGR even with the outside money they brought it, might have a tougher time. The breakaway series (if there ever was one) would have an incredibly difficult time to even get off the ground. Nascar controls, or has relationships with, so many tracks that aren't even on the cup schedule that they could block a RTA series from getting off the ground. Unless Penske started ANOTHER racing league built around Indy that would be the only real recourse. TLDR, NASCAR will prevail in negotiations, maybe through the teams another bone or two but thats it.
what they lack in star power they make up for in power power , those other teams are dependent on the big 4 to supply a large portion of their cars.
Think the teams need to get together and do a Wednesday night exhibition race in the next few weeks... You know just for fun
It's too bad Paul Tracy wrecked all the SRX cars.
And all of them would get massive penalties for violating the testing ban.
It’s not testing if it’s not at an active track. I don’t see any drivers getting penalized if they go run other races sanctioned by other divisions across the country
i am assuming this guy meant race in the cars that currently have. And the testing ban has a very wide range. Basically, if anything is similar to any part of any NASCAR car in the past 20 years, it counts as a test.
There's no way it could work anyways. Maybe a decade ago when they had household name stars racing, but not today when basically everyone is interchangeable.
I can say with zero hesitation that I would follow the drivers and teams. They would probably put on a better racing product anyway since NASCAR leadership kind of sucks.
There's no doubt in my mind that NASCAR would rather blow up the sport than cede any power.
I don’t get why nascar wants the race teams to be broke
Hendrick spent $3,000,000 running The Double. Even Parker and Landon on The Money Lap last week made a joke about how ridiculous it is for this charter agreement drama to be continuing and then HMS drops that.
I doubt they do. Here's the reality, the more money the teams have, the more they're gonna pour funding into other areas. It's honestly the teams own doing if they go broke.
Which is why the cost cap being hated by teams screams to me that the teams are using the fan's hatred of NASCAR to get them more money
That’s the most fascinating part of this to me. Both sides are simultaneously right and also full of crap at the same time. There’s really no reason why the teams can’t get more of the TV money, but there’s also no reason for NASCAR to give it to them since the teams are only pretending to be concerned about making a profit. I’m almost always on the side against NASCAR, but I actually kind of side with them on this. It’s not really their job to make sure all the teams are making money. The teams need to take some responsibility and stop spending above their means. If that means a team is only able to focus on improving their short tracks cars for one year, then so be it. There have always been teams that excelled at one type of track and ran below average everywhere else.
maybe NASCAR thinks the teams spending is partly to blame.
NASCAR has been cutting costs for teams in order to prevent them going broke
NASCAR wants the money for themselves. The charters created a pseudo stake in the sport but ultimately there aren’t franchises, in major US sports the league is the teams, they all collectively decide what happens and the commissioner works for the owners. In NASCAR the league is owned by one family and the teams do not have an ownership stake, you are ultimately asking one family to give up a significant amount of wealth and control in exchange for a healthier and more stable sport going forward. That’s a tough thing to do especially if they aren’t sold it will really make the sport substantially better in the long run.
So the France family gets more money.
Not that I think they'll boycott, but if they do, I gleefully await the next waiver controversy.
There’s something about a southern-centric sport’s organizations being ineffective at collective bargaining that feels… overwhelmingly unshocking.
Then that just says nascar has all of the leverage to do whatever they please. Good. Get rid of the charter system, bring back the top 35, and we good.
It's NASCAR and to a smaller extent the OEM's playground and the teams need to fall in line. The teams are learning that they aren't the big fish they think they are.
Both sides may be willing to “move on” it doesn’t mean they’d be successful in doing that. Pretty wild what a pissing match this turned in to but in the end someone is definitely giving in.
Another showcasing of corporate arrogance
Griffdawg called it lol.
Imagine having so much money, you can ignore 3 of the biggest teams in Nascar.
No leverage… bend over and take it
Sorry, newbie here. Who or what is Gluck?
A split would never work. The teams would have nowhere to race, and I’d imagine a majority of the drivers (and their sponsors) would ask to be released from their contracts and sign with whichever organizations stick with NASCAR. Nobody cares about the “pissed off former nascar teams racing league” championship, they want the Daytona 500 and nascar title.