NASCAR insider brands Michael Jordan’s antitrust lawsuit as an “Hail Mary”

NASCAR community has mixed emotions about the lawsuit filed by 23XI and FRM against the sports owners and CEO Jim France.

NASCAR insider brands Michael Jordan’s antitrust lawsuit as an “Hail Mary”

Michael Jordan and Tyler Reddick (Via IMAGO)

The 2024 season has been marked with the drama involving NASCAR as it’s team over the 2025 to 2031 charter deal negotiations. The saga peaked last Wednesday, when it was announced that Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing and Bob Jenkins’ Front Row Motorsports, have filed a Federal anti-trust lawsuit against NASCAR.

They were the two teams that decided not to sign the take or leave it deal that was offered before the Bristol playoff weekend. Senior NASCAR Journalist Jordan Bianchi, in the latest episode of his The Teardown podcast, explained why the lawsuit was the last and only thing these teams could have done in the charter wars.

What is the only thing we [23XI, FRM] can do? And that is go to court and it’s to go convince 12 people on a jury that this is a monopoly and have them decide what the penalty is. I don’t see what else they could do.

Jordan Bianchi said via the Teardown podcast.

Since the teams haven’t signed the new charter deal, they will lose full-time reserved spot in the championship for 2025 and if the situation isn’t settled would have to field open entries, costing them millions. So, they had to take the legal route, that Bianchi believes is a Hail Mary move from the teams.  

I mean they can continue to run as an open car, which that doesn’t do anything because you’re going to lose millions of dollars. So, this was the play. This is the Hail Mary, this is it. Everything comes down to this. You know, it’s fascinating, and you go through everything.

Jordan Bianchi added.

NASCAR team owner reckons the lawsuit can spin purchase of ARCA against the France family

One of the points of the anti-trust case in the monopoly NASCAR enjoys, which the lawsuit alleges to be made happen illegally. Bianchi talked with a team owner and discussed how the purchase of ARCA series despite it not being close to the top division can be turned against NASCAR. He initially didn’t agree with this, but later admitted it was possible.

ARCA racing at Daytona
ARCA racing at Daytona (Via IMAGO)

Because again, a lot of the tracks they bought, if you spin it the right way in court and you say to a jury, ‘Well they bought all these tracks and they brought them in-house so they can do whatever they want.’ And you can show, hey, we took a date away from this track, and we took a date away from this track and they’re dictating all these things, they look at this, the totality of it and like, oh they did X, Y, and Z, yeah I can see that.

Jordan Bianchi said.

The points made by Jordan Bianchi shows how 23XI and FRM has some valid points in their favor in the lawsuit against NASCAR. But this also shows how much long and ugly the legal process will take, which will be really bad for the whole sport and the teams regardless of what the final outcome will be.