Will Michael Jordan’s jewelry collection get an addition this week?
As if his six NBA championship rings aren’t enough.
We’ll see what the oddsmakers suggest as NASCAR heads to Phoenix for the final race of 2024. Four drivers have survived the first three rounds of the 10-race playoffs, have a championship shot, and the rules are simple.
Of the four, the driver who finishes best is the new champ, even if, as happened last year, he doesn’t win the race. In a decade with this format, Ryan Blaney last year became the first champ who didn’t become champ by winning the finale — he finished second to Ross Chastain but ahead of his three championship competitors.
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Here are NASCAR’s “championship four”
- Ryan Blaney (Team Penske)
- Joey Logano (Team Penske)
- William Byron (Hendrick Motorsports)
- Tyler Reddick (23XI Racing)
It’s Reddick and 23XI, the team Jordan co-owns, that present the possibility of awkwardness this weekend.
Let’s review …
When did Michael Jordan become a NASCAR team owner?
Michael Jordan’s NASCAR team hit the track in 2021.
Jordan’s co-owners are longtime business associate Curtis Polk and current NASCAR racer Denny Hamlin, who drives the No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.
The team name — 23XI — is pronounced 23-eleven, a play on Jordan’s famous Chicago Bulls jersey number (23) and Hamlin’s longtime car number at Gibbs Racing.
Along with Reddick, the two-car team also fields a Toyota for Bubba Wallace.
23XI has eight wins, and now a championship shot
After entering NASCAR as a one-car operation, 23XI fielded two cars starting in 2022. The team has eight Cup Series wins — five from Reddick, two from Wallace and one from Kurt Busch during his lone season with the team in 2022.
This year, Reddick won the regular-season championship by being atop the points standings at the end of the 26-race regular season.
After making it through the playoff rounds of 16 and 12, he clinched a championship shot with a win two weeks ago at Homestead-Miami.
23XI, Front Row take NASCAR to court
Several weeks ago, NASCAR gave the race teams an ultimatum: Sign a new partnership agreement or risk losing their charters — each charter serves as a de facto “franchise” in NASCAR. Teams can have a maximum of four charters.
A charter helps teams create equity in their organizations and also gives each chartered team a guaranteed starting spot in all 36 Cup Series races.
Chartered teams had been bargaining for better financial terms with NASCAR, and while progress was reportedly made, it wasn’t enough for all. 23XI and one other team — Front Row Motorsports, which also fields two cars — didn’t sign their charters.
A Tyler Reddick win would be awkward for NASCAR
NASCAR basically said fine, they’ll race next season with 32 chartered teams instead of 36.
Without chartered teams, 23XI can still enter races as “open” teams on a week-to-week basis, as several here-and-there teams have done over recent years.
But the open teams reportedly race for a smaller piece of the weekly prize purse, don’t enjoy season-long incentives, and if more than 40 cars show up, say, at Daytona they don’t have a guaranteed starting spot, since 40 is the race-day max.
Jordan’s team, and Front Row, are now in court hoping for an injunction to allow their charters to continue into next year while the antitrust case progresses — or, some might say, until a settlement is reached.
The odds seem slim, but it’s at least a possibility that Reddick wins the championship, then begins next season at Daytona without a starting spot in the Daytona 500.
Speaking of odds.
NASCAR odds don’t favor Michael Jordan, Tyler Reddick
Early-week championship odds favor the four drivers in this order:
- Blaney: +240
- Byron: +250
- Logano: +275
- Reddick: +300
These will likely be tweaked after Friday’s lone practice session at Phoenix, and will almost surely be changed after Saturday’s qualifying.
