NASCAR and the teams that compete in the Cup Series are no closer to a revenue sharing agreement required to be sorted out before the 2025 season can be begin.
Both sides have been deadlocked in negotiations for several years, made even more public now that the hardest deadlines are approaching, one that could see several teams not on the grid come the start of the Daytona 500 in February.
Several team owners told The Associated Press over the weekend that the latest offer from the sanctioning body was one of the worst yet. The league still hasn’t given in to teams push to make the charter system permanent.
READ MORE: What is the charter system and how it works
The best NASCAR has offered thus far is a seven-year extension, one that runs through the next television deal, with an option for the next seven seasons. The latest proposal would also allowed NASCAR itself, owned by the France family, to purchase charters.
The Associated Press said teams have pushed back on NASCAR wanting to own and operate teams but were told it was no different than the IndyCar Series, which is owned by Roger Penske, who owns IndyCar in addition to a three-car NASCAR Cup Series team.
Penske also owns and operates the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
NASCAR chairman Jim France owns the Action Express team that competes in the sports car series owned by NASCAR — the Weather Tech Sport Car Championship.
In addition to permanent charters, the teams want 45 percent of traditional broadcast revenue, 33 percent of new revenue (including but not limited to legalized sports betting) and a degree of governance over rules and logistical decisions.
NASCAR wants to mandate a spending cap, which would mean teams opening their books to the sanctioning body, with teams pushing back that the league should then open its books up to teams over how much it really makes on all of the deals it wants a percentage of.
The teams have a combined Team Negotiating Committee comprised of Jeff Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports, Steve Newmark of RFK Racing, Curtis Polk of 23XI Racing and Dave Alpern of Joe Gibbs Racing but France prefers to negotiate with teams individually.
The AP reports that NASCAR would be willing to move forward with races, even if deals aren’t signed with the likes of Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske, if it can reach agreement with a majority of the roster.
In that case, NASCAR has the rights to seize the charters held by those teams and put them on the market to other interested parties.
The teams are less keen on starting their own series, making a go of it independently of NASCAR, but has held that has an option in the negotiating process as well. The teams have also hired top antitrust sports attorney Jeffrey Kessler as an adviser but have shown no hands that it would pursue any kind of legal action.