The teams that compete in the Cup Series retained a major sports antitrust lawyer prior to the Daytona 500 as part of a stalled negotiating process with NASCAR over a new revenue sharing agreement that would run parallel to the next broadcast rights agreement.
Before making the decision public, it was reported that all the team owners had a meeting at the track on Saturday night and extended an invitation to NASCAR officials, including chairman Jim France, with the sanctioning body declining.
The meeting amongst team owners and senior officials took place without NASCAR and the hiring of Jeffrey Kessler was made official the next evening.
The short version is that NASCAR and the teams have been working towards an extension of some kind for the charter system that governs the financial technicalities of the Cup Series. In addition to serving as franchise tokens of sorts, the 36 charters guaranteed the holders guaranteed entry into every race and a guaranteed revenue independent of sponsorship dollars.
The team owners want to make charters permanent, while NASCAR has been reluctant to do so, while both sides are also negotiating over how to split broadcast rights revenue, betting revenue, salary caps and media production intricacies.
How the NASCAR charter system works
With the occasional exception, the teams have largely negotiated in private, choosing not to air its precise wants to the public through the media with executives and driver-owners like Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin only speaking in broad terms.
That was the case on Tuesday as well with Hamlin addressing the topic on his Actions Detrimental podcast.
“I don’t have anything else to say about it other than there’s a story to be told on the owner’s part. Hiring Jeffrey is a big step for the owners, but I think a lot of it is just protection for the team owners,” Hamlin said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of language and so much red tape when it comes to charter agreements and whatnot. You just have to make sure you have all the protection you need. Because this is a big deal. The Charter Agreement is a big deal to us.”
NASCAR president Steve Phelps has continued to speak optimistically over the matter and did so again last week during an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
“We’re going to get it done,” Phelps said. “The only question is when, and I’ve said this for two years. We are going to do a fair deal, and the fair deal is going to provide more money to the race teams. And we’ve got to, we’ll give them a path towards profitability, which is what they want. And an opportunity to increase their enterprise value of their charters.”
Hamlin doesn’t share Phelps optimism.
“I don’t know,” Hamlin said. “I hear Steve Phelps, and I appreciate when he did the interview with Fox [saying], ‘We’re going to get a deal done. We’re going to have a fair agreement to the teams,’ I appreciate his optimism. I’m not as optimistic as probably Steve is, but I don’t know how much of that is what he believes is truth, and how much of it is what he believes versus a narrative that is being tried to put out there.
“[It’s] Awfully disappointing that we just can’t get our feet out of the mud on this thing, but hopefully we get some traction here soon.”
NASCAR prefers to meet with the team owners individually as a tactic to find individually solutions with each organization, especially for those with financial disparities and corresponding different needs.
Hamlin, however, says all the teams are united on this front based on Saturday’s meeting at Daytona.
“Yeah, Michael [Jordan] attended,” Hamlin said. “It was great to hear voices like his, Rick Hendrick, and Roger Penske. Everyone is just kind of right there. Hearing these guys, that are very versed in business. Hearing their side and how they feel and certainly, I feel all of the teams are aligned in that they feel the same way, for sure.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.