The legal battle between NASCAR and the two teams that have filed a joint federal antitrust lawsuit took a nasty turn in court on Thursday. Text messages from NASCAR as well as Front Row Motorsports and 23XI Racing Team, including NBA legend and co-owner Michael Jordan, as documents related to discovery were revealed per the Associated Press.
Front Row and 23XI filed suit alleging monopolistic practices after the two teams refused to sign extension agreements on charter agreement with the stock car racing giant and CEO and chairman Jim France in September, leading to NASCAR stating they plan to sell off the two charters, which guarantee 36 chartered teams entry into the 40-car field each week.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell claimed that NASCAR’s charter system pay may hang in the balance if a settlement isn’t reached prior to the Dec. 1 trial date.
“Everybody is going to get hurt if this thing goes a certain way,” Bell said on Thursday. “If either party feels certain they’re going to win, they’re wrong.”
Among the more explosive messages revealed on Thursday was Scott Prime, NASCAR executive vice president and chief strategy officer, writing to NASCAR executives, “We have all the leverage and the teams will almost have to sign whatever terms we put in front of them.”
In addition, current NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps wrote that executives simply needed to “pick a date and (teams) can either sign or lose their charters. It is that simple.”
In response, NASCAR claimed the teams were not struggling financially, including introducing messages from Jordan claiming that that his team co-ownership is a hobby but that he can “Only can play but so much golf.”
Also, Jordan claimed, “I have lost that much in a casino,” when discussing potential financial impacts of the situation.
NASCAR also took steps to shut down the potential for teams to band together and introduce a new, competing racing league by entering an agreement with track owner Speedway Motorsports that prevents their racetracks from hosting competing events, as well as preventing Next Gen cars from racing in another series, with $20 million in inventory for each team being able to only run in NASCAR Cup Series events.
Judge Bell questioned why, rather than moving to sell the Front Row and 23XI charters, the racing league did not sell the four charters they have held back for expansion purposes. Bell did not, however, make a decision on whether to grant the teams their motion to deny NASCAR’s transfer of one charter to an unnamed party.
“When we first started this whole process, I’ve always said that I want to fight for the betterment of the sport,” Jordan said from the courthouse steps on Thursday. “Even though they try to point out that we made some money, we had a successful business, that’s not the point. The point is that the sport itself needs to continually change for the better, for the fans, as well as for the teams — as well as NASCAR, too, if they understand that.
“I look forward to going down firing,” Jordan added. “If I have to fight this to the end for the betterment of the sport, I will do that.”