More than a year at the table, NASCAR and its teams are yet to reach an agreement on the charter negotiations. The current deal runs out at the end of the ongoing Cup Series season giving both parties a very narrow window of time to finalize the terms. Worryingly, things appear far from done when judging from the words of 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin.
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The veteran driver spoke to the press on Wednesday during the Playoff Media Day. He described the ongoing negotiations as “stagnant” and went on to list his complaints against the officiating body. The story sways wildly depending on who holds the mic but the common chatter is that NASCAR is happy with the latest drafts while teams aren’t. And this is the reason behind Hamlin’s frustration.
“I chose to invest back in the France family and NASCAR and they are yet to show me an opportunity where I’m gonna get that back.”
Denny Hamlin gets GRILLED about charter negotiations. pic.twitter.com/faWYKeZ5Hj
— SpeedFreaks (@SpeedFreaks) September 4, 2024
He said, “One side will have to wake up and be reasonable. That’s all.” And obviously, that isn’t the side that he is on. He continued to explain that the officials keep heading in the wrong direction and are far from a mutually beneficial deal. With the regular season now over, the new deadline is the end of the playoffs. But what if the checkered flag isn’t waved by then?
He added, “Yeah, absolutely, it could [get done during the Playoffs]. But, again, someone will have to wake up and have a completely different mindset and I just don’t know if that is going to be possible. What happens if the season ends? Then, we retain all of our rights.” Walking so close to the ledge is far more dangerous than any race but Hamlin is steadfast in the approach.
What are the teams holding out for in the charter negotiations?
Less dependency on sponsors. That has been the goal for teams for a long time now. RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski detailed earlier this year that the dependency on sponsors has steadily come down over the past few decades. He further expected the new charter deal to render it so that only 65% of the overall funding would be received from sponsors.
This can be done only by NASCAR shelving out further revenue to teams from its TV, media, and track deals. And this is precisely the biggest issue on the table. Teams want more money and the promotion is unwilling to part with it. As Hamlin said, one of the sides is going to have to be reasonable.
The implications would be large if February 2025 comes around and a deal isn’t in place by then. The multi-million dollar charters would become useless pieces of paper and the teams might not even want to compete in NASCAR anymore. The optimistic hope is that such a scenario isn’t reached.
