AllRacing

‘From the outset, we’ve been clear: this is not an antitrust case,’ says NASCAR’s Phelps

NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps offered the most lengthy and in-depth remarks the sanctioning body has made about its ongoing litigation when he read from a prepared statement on Friday.

Phelps took the opportunity to speak out at the beginning of NASCAR’s annual State of the Sport address at Phoenix Raceway. It was the only comment made about the antitrust lawsuit brought by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports during the availability. NASCAR has rarely made public comments about the lawsuit, and Phelps reiterated that no questions would be taken on the subject.

The full statement from Phelps was as follows:

“In each of the past two years, I’ve sat here and told you the same thing: healthy race teams are critical to our sport, and we’ve been true to our word. From the outset, we’ve been clear: this is not an antitrust case. The 2025 charter agreement is an improvement on the 2016 framework with enhancements that reflect real progress for teams and the sport, including over $3 billion in guaranteed payments to the teams, enterprise value that is roughly $1.5 billion now to the race teams, guaranteed starting positions each week that allow teams to sell sponsorship on the best billboards in sports, the Next Gen car, and charters guaranteed for 14 ye ars until at least 2039, plus an obligation to negotiate in good faith beyond that. The bottom line here is NASCAR is committed to charters.

“I also want to be clear: The France family started NASCAR in 1948 using their own resources, grit, and ingenuity. They have taken countless personal and financial risks investing billions of dollars in untold hours into growing this sport to create the opportunity for teams to race in front of fans for nearly eight decades. We are proud of what we’ve built for fans together with the race teams, especially since the charters were introduced.

“As you saw in the race team declarations, the charter system is a critical part of this sport and something we created with and for the teams, and will continue to defend and preserve it. Make no mistake, the lawsuit puts this at risk. We remain committed to doing what is best for the sport of stock car racing, for the race teams we partner with, the many stakeholders who engage with it, the people throughout the garage who depend on it, and of course, the millions of fans who love it like we do and just want to see more of the best racing in our history.

“Although we prefer this lawsuit was never brought to us, we remain confident in our case before a jury and, if necessary, the Fourth Circuit. We remain optimistic that we can continue to work toward a resolution to this litigation that allows us to return our focus to racing, which is what we all want. The financials of this sport have been unsealed and made available to the court. It may sound counterintuitive, but that’s not something we at NASCAR are hiding from, and in fact, I really encourage you to think about what you are seeing and how it comes to light each weekend for fans, partners, and race teams. Our goal has always been to create the best fan and partner experience in sports, and we invest in that every year for our people, our tracks, the racing product, and how we run the business. It’s been a guiding principle for almost 80 years and four generations of the France family stewardship.

“With that in mind, I’d like to highlight a few fundamental points about this litigation and the business of NASCAR. NASCAR is more than just the Cup Series. Our business includes other national series, and we support both regional and international series. Our sport is built on families, relationships, and trust that we earn every day. We depend on each other as partners, promoters, and fan ambassadors for motorsports, and some of them have accepted less to accommodate the new charter agreement. Families like the Smith family, who run Speedway Motorsports, the Mattioli family at Pocono, and Roger Penske at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“NASCAR’s balance sheet has more than $1.2 billion in invested capital, meaning the vast majority of what we make is invested back into the sport, our race teams, and our people. It’s the core principle of how we operate and a recognition of our importance in motorsports broadly. Between track operations, new races, safety administration of the sport, charter payments of taxes across our multi-state operations, our role as the sanctioning body requires tremendous and often unpredictable expenses. Ensuring we have adequate funds to cover unforeseen circumstances or opportunistic expansion is critical and responsible business.

“We have significant debt payments from the ISC merger that transformed our business and our schedule, as well as other business-critical liabilities that ensure we can operate the sport year to year. We aren’t like other sports in this regard. We have unique commitments.

“Teams receive about $1.1 billion per year from their sponsors and from NASCAR combined. In charter negotiation, we hoped to better align our collective future around a model that facilitates mutual growth through three main ideas: increased revenue for the teams, which has happened; agreed upon cost structure, cost and materials for building their cars is down about 40 percent, and we work with teams on a cost structure but haven’t yet come up with a formula that we agree upon; and then the driver ambassador program and setting driver participation to join us in growing the sport. We believe our charters are fair and equitable. We did our best to support the race teams without destabilizing our sport and compromising our ability to deliver for fans well into the future.

“NASCAR is fully aligned with our race team partners, who have submitted declarations hoping to end this litigation. We are trying our hardest. I’m trying my hardest both as a fan as well as the commissioner of this sport that I’ve loved since I was five years old. While two of the 15 teams may not share that view and seem set on an unfortunate court battle, I hope that we can all agree that our racing is as good as it has ever been and we care a great deal about how we serve our fans, especially as we look forward to capping off our season by celebration new champions across all of our national series.

“We have the most diverse and challenging schedule in motorsports. I expect great racing and both Steve (O’Donnell, NASCAR president) and I look forward to presenting trophies to very deserving champions this weekend.”