Michael Jordan's Lawsuit Against NASCAR Could Upend Motorsports
But crying to a federal judge is no way to negotiate.
Just imagine it: the roar of 40 overpowered sedans—plastered in vinyls hawking everything from fast food to faith, weed to Creed—bumping and banging at 200 mph. NASCAR has always drawn in unlikely characters. Beyond big screen portrayals by Tom Cruise and Will Ferrell, it has lured celebrity team owners like Pitbull, Super Bowl coach Joe Gibbs, and, most improbably, Michael Jordan. But unlike the others, Jordan has taken his endless hunt for an edge to court—the federal kind, not the hardwood.
Jordan is suing NASCAR for monopoly. His 23XI Racing team, along with Bob Jenkins' Front Row Motorsports, has hauled NASCAR into federal court, claiming new changes to the sport's charter system are unfair to teams. For most fans, the surprise isn't the lawsuit's details but the casting. Jordan, a global icon and owner of one of NASCAR's newest teams, is playing the part of underdog, slinging stones at the France family dynasty that built stock-car racing from a Daytona beach into a billion-dollar circuit.
Jim France is heir to a three-generation fiefdom that's been steering NASCAR for 77 years. His family controls the sanction, the schedule, the rulebook, and many of the tracks themselves. They aren't beloved by fans, but they've kept the show running, and lately, the sport's been more competitive than ever. The charter system, introduced in 2016, is central to that shift: Buy in and you're guaranteed a start in every race, resale value in the tens of millions, and a share of the TV money. Under the current $7.7 billion media deal, tracks receive about 65 percent, teams split 25 percent, and NASCAR takes the rest.
That framework has changed the sport. NASCAR was once dominated by dynasties: Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson—great drivers who won so much they nearly smothered the product. Watching them was like watching Jordan himself drop 70 points every night; thrilling in isolation, deadening for a league. The France family's reforms broke that cycle. The charter system works like revenue sharing, and the Next Gen car functions like a salary cap. Together, they've produced a level of parity NASCAR has never seen. Jordan himself is proof: 23XI Racing launched in 2021, won in its first season, and has since won eight more races.
But Jordan and Front Row Motorsports say the numbers are still stacked. Even with last-place charter payouts climbing to about $8.5 million annually, NASCAR controls the lion's share of the media haul and directs most of it to tracks it owns. The contracts, they argue, come bound with gag clauses and noncompetes that give teams no real choice but to sign and stay silent. Refuse, and you're stripped of your charter, relegated to "open" status with smaller purses and no guaranteed grid spot.
So far, the courts aren't buying the arguments from Jordan and Front Row Motorsports. They filed their suit in October 2024 after refusing to sign NASCAR's new charter deal. They briefly won an injunction, letting them race as charter teams, but in June, the 4th Circuit tossed it, saying their case wasn't strong enough. NASCAR agreed not to sell the disputed charters this season and tweaked rules so their cars can keep racing as "open" entries, though for less money. Trial is set for December 1, with the judge warning that if the plaintiffs prevail, "NASCAR will look much different by 2026."
Strip away the filings and the spectacle is absurd: Imagine Jerry Jones storming out of the NFL, claiming Commissioner Roger Goodell runs a monopoly. Yes—that's the point. Every league is a closed system. Your house is a monarchy, your office a dictatorship, and NASCAR a monopoly unto itself. That's how order is kept, parity enforced, and the game protected from chaos. The grown-up way to change the earnings split is called negotiation. The childish way is to sue and beg a federal judge to strong-arm your partner.
The moment you move from the negotiating table to the courtroom, you stop being a partner. You prove yourself a bad-faith actor, conscripting the government to dictate terms by fiat. That doesn't just tilt a revenue split, it undermines the entire structure of the league. Why would tracks invest if payouts can be rewritten in court? Why would sponsors commit if contracts can be overturned by a judge? Once antitrust litigation becomes a substitute for bargaining, the league doesn't bend—it breaks.
Teams do have other options. Tony Stewart's SRX series may have been a sideshow compared to NASCAR, but it landed a TV deal and packed short tracks on Thursday nights. Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s CARS Racing Tour gives drivers and sponsors another outlet. They're smaller, scrappier, and nowhere near NASCAR's scale—but that's the point. If you don't like the house rules, you can always start your own game. What you don't get to do is drag the government in to rewrite the rulebook of someone else's league.
To let courts dictate the terms of a private league is to declare that nothing built can ever belong to its builders. The France family turned a regional curiosity into a national spectacle. If antitrust prevails, they'll be reduced to tenants in their own house. And for what? So Michael Jordan can pose as the underdog in a sport that made him competitive overnight. That isn't justice—it's vandalism dressed up as fairness.
For this Chicago sports fan, it's a bit hard to watch. Six championships earned him a bit of grace and that global trademark: "Air Jordan." This little antitrust sideshow might just ground him.
