Basketball icon Michael Jordan and his NASCAR team are now among two teams suing the stock car racing organization and its owner for what the lawsuits allege are NASCAR’s monopoly over the sport and unfair terms for the teams, drivers and sponsors, according to new reports.
On Wednesday, Front Row Motorsports and 23XI Racing, a team co-owned by Jordan, jointly filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and its owner, CEO Jim France, in federal court in North Carolina’s Western District.
“We share a passion for racing, the thrill of competition, and winning,” reads a joint statement by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports released on Wednesday.
Their lawsuit alleges that NASCAR and France used “anticompetitive and exclusionary practices” to “enrich themselves at the expense of the premier stock car racing teams.”
Jordan and others allege that NASCAR operates without transparency and has control over the sport to such a degree that it unfairly benefits the organization at the expense of owners, sponsors, drivers and fans.
NASCAR, unlike most other professional sports leagues, is a privately owned and operated company by the France family.
Its current chief, Jim France, 79, took over the CEO role in 2016 for his nephew, ex-NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France, now 62, who took an “indefinite leave” after his arrest in New York on charges of drunken driving and drug possession.
“No other major professional sport in North America is run by a single family that enriches themselves through these kinds of unchecked monopolistic practices,” the suit reads.
In the statement, the teams note that “off the track” they share a mutual “belief that change is necessary for the sport we love.”
23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports have retained prominent sports attorney Jeffrey Kessler, the co-executive chair of international law firm Winston & Strawn, headquartered in Chicago.
The antitrust case was brought on, they say, “so that racing can thrive and become a more competitive and fair sport in ways that will benefit teams, drivers, sponsors, and most importantly, fans.”
In the suit, it cites financial challenges facing team owners struggling to turn a profit.
The two racing teams seek discovery from both NASCAR and owner France, and financial compensation for the alleged anticompetitive terms NASCAR teams were subjected to under the 2016 charter agreement.
Of the 19 team original owners granted charters with Jordan in 2016, only eight teams remain, the lawsuit cites. Additionally, it costs roughly $18 million a year to run a single chartered team for a full season of Cup Series races, it added.
The ex-NBA legend is the first Black majority owner of a full-time racing team in the NASCAR series. Kessler says a preliminary injunction will be filed to enable teams to race next calendar year while pursuing the antitrust litigation.
“Today’s action shows I’m willing to fight for a competitive market where everyone wins,” Jordan, 61, said in a separate statement.
Led by driver Tyler Reddick, Jordan’s 23XI Racing won its first regular-season championship last month in the fourth year of existing. He sits 9th place in NASCAR’s standings.
“Everyone knows that I have always been a fierce competitor, and that will to win is what drives me and the entire 23XI team each and every week out on the track,” according to his statement.
“I love the sport of racing and the passion of our fans, but the way NASCAR is run today is unfair to teams, drivers, sponsors, and fans,” stated Jordan.
This news about the lawsuits comes days after NASCAR announced that it will hold a Cup Series race in Mexico for the first time, revealing that next year’s Xfinity Series and Mexico Series events will be on the same weekend at Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course.
And less than 4 months away on Feb. 2 is NASCAR’s preseason Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., which will be followed days later on Feb. 16 with the season open of the 2025 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla.
