UPDATE 5 – 9-9-2024: The term of the charter agreement is for seven years starting in 2025 and commensurate with NASCAR’s new media rights deals that begin next year, meaning teams who signed on did not get the permanency of the system they had been negotiating for in recent years. Teams are getting more revenue as part of the deal, which stems from NASCAR getting a 40% increase in its media rights agreements worth $7.7B. For example, the last-place charter got around $4-5M annually in the old charter agreement from 2016-24, while that will go up to around $8.5M in the new version from 2025-31, people familiar with the matter said.
UPDATE 4 – 9-8-2024: 23XI Racing co-owner Curtis Polk described the battle between his team and NASCAR as “David facing Goliath,” indicating the organization — with fellow co-owners Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin — was nowhere close to signing the proposed extension of NASCAR’s charter agreement with teams.
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Polk said while other teams “may have felt pressured and compelled to sign the agreement under significant duress,” 23XI viewed the terms as “particularly harmful to our operations and our ownership group’s interests and intellectual property rights.”
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The other holdout among owners, Bob Jenkins of Front Row Motorsports, said his team’s concerns “are very similar to those raised by 23XI” and said it wasn’t feasible for Front Row to sign the extension on short notice.
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So where does this leave 23XI and Front Row, after NASCAR threatened to revoke charters from those who did not sign by the midnight Friday deadline? That is unclear, and no decision has been reached by NASCAR, which declined to comment for this story.
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Not all team owners were so dissatisfied with the new charter agreement.
“There are elements I really like and there are some things that are to be desired,” said one team owner. “It’s a better agreement than we currently have now. I feel like I can build a business model around it.”
One long-time team executive said he respected the new teams for trying to help build the sport through being firm in negotiations, but said, “I’ve been here when we didn’t have the (charter system) in place and this current system is much better.”
— The Athletic — (subscription required)
UPDATE 3 – 9-7-2024: 23XI Racing confirms it has not signed the charter agreement. They say they have not had the opportunity to fairly bargain for the new charter contract.
Statement from 23XI ownership pic.twitter.com/z0z5rjRjEP
— 23XI Racing (@23XIRacing) September 7, 2024
UPDATE 2 – 9-7-2024: Fox Sports’ bob Pockrass reports that all teams, except 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports, have signed the charter extension with NASCAR.
From several team/industry sources, all but two team owners have signed the charter agreement. 23XI & Front Row (both two-car teams with plans/hopes to expand to three) apparently yet to sign. TBD what happens next if/when they sign/what would happen with those charters.
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) September 7, 2024
UPDATE – 9-7-2024: Some NASCAR Cup Series teams are preparing to sign the sanctioning body’s governing charter agreement from 2025 through 2031 and could do so by the end of this weekend, according to people familiar with the matter, although other teams may hold out and keep negotiating.
Since the start of negotiations in 2022, teams have had the goal of staying together until the end of the talks, although they don’t technically need to do so because teams are independent contractors and don’t own any equity in NASCAR, a key difference from the labor talks of major stick-and-ball leagues. NASCAR has pushed to get a deal done this week before the playoffs start, and people familiar with the thinking of three different teams told SBJ tonight that several, but potentially not all, teams are getting ready to sign the agreement and are expected to do so over the coming days, barring any last-minute snags.
The term is for seven years guaranteed with an additional seven-year option, meaning teams signing on now did not get the key concession they were looking for of permanent charters. Teams are expected to get more media rights revenue in the new agreement, though whether it’s enough to make them financially healthy is something that has been debated in recent months.
ORIGINAL POST – 9-3-2024: NASCAR hopes to reach an agreement on a new governing charter system with its premier series teams this week to avoid having the talks spill over into its playoffs, which start this weekend at Atlanta, according to sources. The sides have been negotiating for two years on the terms of a charter deal. Teams have secured a commitment from NASCAR to increase the amount of media rights revenue they receive in the next term but have sharply disagreed on a number of fronts, and there were signs of continuing tensions this past weekend at Darlington Raceway.
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Teams received the latest draft from NASCAR last week as the sides continue to haggle on deal points around things like how much of a say teams will have over major competition-related rules changes that NASCAR could make over the coming seven years from 2025 through 2031. People familiar with the matter said some teams appear to be at a point, or nearing a point, where they’ll be ready to sign NASCAR’s offer. Still, it was unclear whether a deal will get done this week. It’s also unclear whether all teams will ultimately stick together and sign at the same time, or whether some could hold out and try to negotiate for better terms, a scenario that some in the sport are leery of.
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Meanwhile, NASCAR Productions was seen by SBJ filming with some drivers at Darlington this past weekend for the second season of a docuseries on Netflix. Several teams agreed to give access on the condition they can revoke their grant of rights if a charter deal isn’t reached, sources say. The cameras were trailing drivers who were on the “bubble” of making or missing NASCAR’s playoffs, which include 16 drivers who either won a race or were at the top of the points standings for drivers who didn’t win a race.