Michael Jordan’s antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR highlights family ties to motorsports

The theme of family ties in motorsports has been woven through Michael Jordan’s federal antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR, with witness after witness testifying to their emotional connections to the top motorsports series in the United States.

It began on the opening day when three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin broke down in tears talking about his dying father introducing him to racing and financially leveraging the entire family to help his son make it to NASCAR.

Next came Jordan himself, a basketball Hall of Famer who was actually raised going on family “weekend vacations” to NASCAR races across the South with his Richard Petty-loving father. So began a love affair that led him to partner with Hamlin to launch 23XI Racing in 2021.

Bob Jenkins formed Front Row Motorsports after falling in love with NASCAR as a teenager in East Tennessee and he’s hoped to hand the team down to his four sons.

Joe Gibbs Racing is a family business, the daughter-in-law of the Hall of Fame NFL coach testified, and Richard Childress said his 60-year-old team is meant to go to his grandsons, both current Cup Series drivers.

And then there is NASCAR itself: Bill France Sr. founded the sport in 1948 and to this day it is privately owned by the Florida-based France family. His youngest son is chairman, his granddaughter vice chair and great-grandson an executive on NASCAR’s board of directors.

It was core principles that Bill France passed down to his two sons that shaped the hardline stance Jim France took with teams as NASCAR chairman in negotiations for the 2025 revenue-sharing agreement.

The teams wanted charters — the equivalent of a franchise in other sports — to become permanent and not renewable. In NASCAR, a charter guarantees cars a spot in the 40-car field each week, as well as specified financial terms, and Jim France never considered permanency an option.

Jim France testified Wednesday, the eighth day of the trial, that he relied on the core principles drilled into his head over dinner growing up in negotiations. His mother, credited with helping her husband build NASCAR from nothing, told her two sons to always pay their bills. Bill France Sr. advised them “do what you say you’re going to do.”

“I’ve just seen so much change over the years and things are changing at a fast pace and I don’t know how to put something in place — I don’t know how we could come to an agreement that covers forever,” he testified.

He later tied it directly to his parents’ advice.

“I don’t have a sightline for the future and I don’t feel comfortable making a promise I can’t keep forever,” he testified.

That thinking aligned with Tuesday testimony from NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps, who gave NASCAR’s version of the chaotic Sept. 6, 2024, final agreements presented to teams late that Friday afternoon with an end-of-day deadline to sign the 112-page document or forfeit their charters.

Phelps testified the delay in sending the final drafts was because France had promised Roger Penske, owner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, IndyCar and teams in multiple racing series including NASCAR, that France would personally speak to Penske before the agreements were delivered. France tried to call Penske several times that day and Phelps testified Penske didn’t answer.

It wasn’t until after the two had finally spoken that the charters were sent to teams, at close to 5 p.m., with a midnight deadline.

“Jim is a man of his word,” Phelps testified.

23XI Racing, which is owned by Jordan, Hamlin, and Jordan’s financial adviser, Curtis Polk, and Front Row, owned by Jenkins, were the only two teams out of 15 organizations that refused to sign. They sued instead.

Multiple team owners have described that day on the opening weekend of the 2024 playoffs as an ultimatum from NASCAR as they found the offers to be “take-it-or-leave-it” and they signed with “a gun to our head.” Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress testified Tuesday his team would have gone out of business if he didn’t sign the agreement.

France had a better showing on the stand Wednesday than he did the day before as plaintiffs attorney Jeffrey Kessler had to repeat many questions and France said on numerous topics that he was either unable to recall, did not remember, or was not sure.

It happened again, one time on Wednesday, when Kessler asked France if anyone can take NASCAR away from the family. France referenced back to the COVID-19 pandemic, when NASCAR shut down for nearly two months before leveraging its ownership of racetracks to become the first sport back up and running — albeit without fans in the grandstands.

“I don’t know,” he slowly said. “We were in business in 2020 of March and we woke up weren’t in business. I don’t know how to answer that.”

NASCAR is expected to conclude its defense Friday.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing