NASCAR Settles Lawsuit With Michael Jordan, 23XI Motorsports, Front Row Motorsports
NASCAR has been involved in a trial over a major lawsuit brought by race teams 23XI Motorsports and Front Row Motorsports.
Retired basketball superstar Michael Jordan is one of the owners of 23XI Motorsports.
The two race teams brought the lawsuit because they believed NASCAR was acting like a monopolistic bully -- and because NASCAR asked teams to sign its most recent charter agreement on a Friday with deadline that would allow teams very little time to review the proposal.
Current NASCAR star Denny Hamlin co-owns 23XI, even though he drives for Joe Gibbs racing. So does Curtis Polk. Businessman Bob Jenkins owns Front Row Motorsports.
Terms of the settlement have not been released, but Jordan and NASCAR officials said that team charters will now be permanent.
The settlement arrived on the ninth day of trial -- and the trial itself started after two days of failed settlement negotiations.
"What all parties have always agreed on is a deep love for the sport and a desire to see it fulfill its full potential. This is a landmark moment, one that ensures NASCAR's foundation is stronger, its future is brighter and its possibilities are greater."
That came from a joint statement from NASCAR and the teams.
Jordan added this:
"Like two competitors, obviously we tried to get as much done in each other's favor. I've said this from Day 1: the only way this sport is going to grow is we have to find some synergy between the two entities. I think we've gotten to that point, unfortunately it took 16 months to get here, but I think level heads have gotten us to this point where we can actually work together and grow this sport. I am very proud about that and I think Jim feels the same."
The Jim that Jordan referred to is NASCAR chairman Jim France, who said this:
"I do feel the same and we can get back to focusing on what we really love, and that's racing, and we spent a lot of time not really focused on that so much as we needed to be. I feel like we made a very good decision here together and we have a big opportunity to continue growing the sport."
Hopefully the settlement works out well for both the teams and NASCAR itself -- and hopefully the fans end up being the real winners.
We'll cover this more on the TTAC podcast next week -- we'd already recorded this week's 'cast when this news broke. Stay tuned for a deeper dive.
[Image: NASCAR]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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What a pile of worthless crap
NASCAR is completely irrelevant- none of the 'stock' cars have any relationship to the showroom models, the staged race format is boring, and the drivers are bland corporate spokespeople.