What’s Happening?

Dollars and cents are ultimately the lifeblood of every business, and, since NASCAR is a private company, it’s tough to know the exact details of the company’s financials. However, there is a bit of information out there, and we discuss what his findings mean for the sport.

• NASCAR’s financials have been a big topic of discussion in recent months. With both the new TV deal in place and the charter negotiations, many fans and those in the industry are wondering how best to slice up the pie.
• NASCAR has been a privately owned company since its’ inception in 1948. The France family has been the owners with 4 different family members taking control of the company.
• Fans are curious to see how NASCAR’s future business endeavors work out. All of them hinge on the company’s finances.

How Much Money NASCAR Makes

In order to know what NASCAR makes, it’s important to know where all of the money ultimately comes from and where it goes. The biggest way that NASCAR makes money is through the TV deal, which pays $820 million per year, and the next TV deal will pay $1.1 billion per year.

NASCAR also owns 14 purpose-built race tracks across the country. This came from a buyout of International Speedway Corporation in 2019, so, NASCAR gets extra revenue from that as well. There’s also the merchandise sales and the ticket sales as well.

NASCAR also has expenses like any other business from these revenue streams. This includes all of the basics like payroll, prize money pools, and even fees to host events at certain race tracks NASCAR does not own. The Chicago Street Race is one example of this.

Now, combining all of this into account, how much does NASCAR make? Well, S&P Global Ratings estimates that NASCAR’s free cash flow for the future is estimated at around $135-$145 million. Brendan Coffey of Yahoo.com says that NASCAR’s total revenue will be around $1.8 billion in the “Coming years”.

What Does This Mean for the Race Teams?

What it means is that teammates likely want a bigger slice of the pie in terms of revenue from NASCAR. Jeff Gordon recently joined the Dale Jr. Download to discuss the charter situation, and he said that teams are “Struggling”, and their reliance is primarily on sponsorship income.

However, when compared to how much money that NASCAR brings in, their revenues are not that high. With only $145 million maximum of free cash flow, that’s only 8.06% of NASCAR’s annual revenue. NASCAR doesn’t have $1.8 billion extra to play with to give out to the teams for the charter agreement.

Obviously, NASCAR will be getting just under $300 million or so more per year under the new TV deal, so, there will be more money to spread around, but, some of that money has to go to other places. As of right now, the teams and NASCAR are far apart in terms of their revenue sharing. Adam Stern reported in January that NASCAR was offering 49% of the TV revenue to the teams, while the teams would get 42%. There was some debate over the exact figures, but, the point is that NASCAR and the teams continue to be far apart on revenue sharing.

Ultimately, NASCAR has a lot of money, but, not a lot of it is free for them to spend on extra things. This is why negotiating with the race teams can become so fickle.