Does NASCAR Really Think It Can Beat Michael Jordan 1-on-1?

A funny thing happened when most teams signed their NASCAR Cup Series charter agreement renewals last week.

Much of the attention has been focused on 23XI Racing and the team’s refusal to sign the deal, positioning them on the outside looking in.

One of the questions that surrounds the non-compliance is this: what will NASCAR do with 23XI or Front Row Motorsports, both of whom chose not to sign?

It’s a solid question and brings up part of the whole issue with the charter system from an ideological construct. Did anyone ever define what a charter is? At one point, charters were called medallions or something silly like that, as if it were a coin that a driver hung from the rear-view mirror of their car and gave them permission to race. What it really did was provide assurance.

At the time, buying into the system mean that a car was assured a place on the grid, which meant a piece of the purse. In some ways, this created a stabilizing force in sport, giving teams some intrinsic value beyond just the machines and the shops and whatnot. (That’s not to exclude personnel, but it gets handled differently when thinking in terms of corporate assets.)

The charter system evolved into one where the teams started to have a collective (albeit fractious) voice to challenge the NASCAR oligarchy. The teams, which ostensibly provide the meat to NASCAR’s potatoes, found this new relationship beneficial in their demands to have more of the dessert. With new TV deals set to begin, the teams want to enjoy more of the desserts for the fruits of their labors.

However, NASCAR has continued to try to exist as the dictator that it once was. The problem is, if it really wanted to do so, it never would have let the medallion/charter relationship enter the garage. The compromise brought the sport more in line with MLB, the NFL, NBA and NHL. In these leagues, the franchises have seen nothing but growing rates of return in their value.

The major players in the sport have all grown up in it and may be pleased with the modest gains they made in the charter negotiations and while recognizing their own wealth. That seems like a good place to be. The outlier to all of this is Michael Jordan, who is either going to sell his team to Dale Earnhardt Jr. (doubt it) or is setting himself to get busy in the courts with NASCAR – something that the organization should fear, as it has kept its books relatively unseen.

Let’s look at how we get…