The antitrust lawsuit trial between NASCAR and 23XI Racing/Front Row Motorsports is going on this week at full speed. Emotional testimonies and mindbending numbers are getting out of the courtroom every day, intensifying the drama to extreme levels and making fans eager to see what the final outcome is going to be. Ken Schrader, meanwhile, doesn’t see anything good on the horizon.
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The former superstar was engaged in a conversation with Kenny Wallace recently on the latter’s YouTube channel. Wallace mentioned how all the other team owners must be looking at 23XI Racing as a champion and hoping for the team to be successful in this fight. In response, Schrader hit everyone with a strong dose of the reality that would be inevitable if 23XI Racing won in the end.
He pointed out how several team owners were trying to convince 23XI Racing to settle with NASCAR before the trial. Once the trial began, they’re now hoping for it to emerge victorious. He said, “If they do win, what’s it going to do? At what cost? What’s it going to do to our sport? What’s it going to do to the attendance? How many fans are we going to piss off? How many sponsors are we going to piss off?”
“‘Hey, we’re not involved in this thing as a sponsor. We’re not involved in this deal to be in the middle of something like this. We’ll sponsor something else.’ You know, nothing really good can come from it.”
His point puts forward an outcome that many have been conveniently ignoring thus far. The next course of action, should 23XI Racing prevail, has to be on the minds of NASCAR’s elite.
What could happen if NASCAR loses?
Judge Kenneth D. Bell has warned teams multiple times throughout these proceedings that going to trial could have severe consequences. NASCAR might even be ordered to sell all its race tracks if it fails to end up winning the case. What this means is that a new order of things will have to be implemented.
The charter system could be dismantled, the promotion and the teams could suffer major financial damages, and the France family might have to sell parts of their property. As Schrader pointed out, this isn’t what the TV partners or the sponsors signed up for. They might be forced to cut their losses and take their business elsewhere.
