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23XI and Front Row Motorsports sued NASCAR on Oct. 2. While this lawsuit will be a long haul, that period will also reveal new and unknown information. So, as the lawsuit rolls forward, what are five things we want to learn about NASCAR?
A major topic of the 2025 NASCAR Charter Agreement and repeatedly mentioned in the 23XI/FRM lawsuit is NASCAR’s wanting intellectual property rights from teams. As noted on page 29 of the lawsuit:
“The take-it-or-leave-it offer from NASCAR included numerous one-sided, monopolistic economic terms that were far less than the teams would receive in a competitive market. It did not provide a fair split of revenues so that the teams would have a chance to earn a reasonable return on their investment. It seized control over team intellectual property rights, to be used for NASCAR’s benefit.”
What intellectual property means in this context is not clear. However, it could include the right to driver likeness and things like paint schemes and number fonts. Some have theorized that NASCAR wants to use these in marketing materials and products.
While this seems reasonable, 23XI and FRM are very clearly upset by this. So, is there more to this, or are the plaintiffs just playing their cards right now?
For some time now, fans have wondered about NASCAR’s attendance figures. Some wonder out of curiosity, while others feel it could tell about the state of the sport.
The fears about attendance come from the track’s trimming down seating and covering up sections entirely. However, this year, many have wanted accurate attendance figures as it looks like several races have seen a boost in attendance in 2024.
While we occasionally get rough and vague estimates, NASCAR’s attendance is relatively unknown. NASCAR won’t release attendance figures because the tracks and NASCAR are privately owned, and as Bob Pockrass posted in the past, the announced numbers weren’t entirely accurate.
Attendance could be released at some point during litigation, as NASCAR’s track ownership is a key part of the lawsuit. However, there is a chance that NASCAR does not even have accurate numbers.
The 2025 NASCAR Charter Agreement sparked this lawsuit. After nearly two years of back-and-forth negotiations between NASCAR and the teams, when signing came, 23XI and FRM held out.
Charter Agreements are the constitution of NASCAR’s charter system. That system allows one chartered entry into every NASCAR Cup Series points race and revenue sharing with NASCAR.
This agreement is relatively private, and there are still some unknowns about the 2025 Agreement. The initial lawsuit taught us little about it. However, if a copy of the 2025 lawsuit were to become public, it would clear up numerous questions about the charter system as a whole, including the detailed finances of revenue sharing, what the teams can do, and what NASCAR can do.
What’s Happening? Jeff Gordon joined the “Dale Jr Download” this week, and the conversation naturally turned towards the lack of…
This is a bold one, but it could help or hurt the court of public opinion for NASCAR. Many estimates have placed the France family’s net worth in the billions. However, what NASCAR’s revenue would tell us is how much NASCAR may be withholding from revenue sharing with teams.
Revenue sharing was a major plot point in the 2025 Charter negotiations. Teams, of course, want more money, and NASCAR, of course, does not want to give the teams more money.
This revenue is valuable as it helps teams make ends meet. Most fans figured teams were in a good spot until Hendrick Motorsports’ Jeff Gordon told the Dale Jr Download that HMS has not turned a profit “in 10 years.”
Furthermore, the lawsuit states that fielding one chartered car costs “$18 million per year” (p. 6). While teams allegedly got a revenue increase, it would be interesting to see how much of the “NASCAR pie” that increase is.
What’s Happening? While the legal aspects of the 23XI and Front Row Motorsports lawsuit are interesting, the drama of the matter…
This is a simple yet pointed question. What does NASCAR think of itself right now? Away from the cleaned-up talk, corporate language, and positive moments, what does NASCAR think about its product right now?
But how would this be revealed in a lawsuit? Well, we have already seen letters, now public, between 23XI and NASCAR. During this lawsuit, more internal documents from NASCAR could be revealed, with tidbits of information and opinions on the sport.
While it is a bit of a stretch, maybe fans could get some clarity on how NASCAR’s founding family thinks the ever-changing sport is doing. The past decade has felt to many fans like a whirlwind of rumors about how bad or good NASCAR is doing. So, perhaps this could instill some confidence in its fans.
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