NASCAR's charter disagreement with teams at breaking point as playoffs arrive

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — After Tyler Reddick battled a stomach virus throughout the Southern 500 to eke out a 1-point win over Kyle Larson for NASCAR’s regular-season championship, he and the 23XI Racing ownership group went to collect the trophy.

Reddick stood next to the trophy, team co-owner Michael Jordan by his side. Co-owners Denny Hamlin and Curtis Polk were on the other side. Nowhere to be found? A NASCAR executive to present the hardware.

“You know, certainly, pretty disappointed to not see anyone from NASCAR present Tyler his trophy,” Hamlin said.

Was it personal? He didn't know, but he could not recall another time a NASCAR bigwig wasn't on hand to pass out shiny new hardware.

With the 10-race playoffs opening Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, NASCAR and its teams remain bitterly locked in a years-long feud on an extension of the franchise system at the heart of the business. The teams want a bigger share of the revenue pie, a seat at the negotiating table and for charters — they guarantee a spot in any Cup Series race and thus part of the purse — to become permanent.

Every single proposal made to the teams has been deemed unacceptable. As it happens, Polk — who helped Jordan become one of the most recognizable celebrities in the world — is the unofficial leader of the team resistance with charters set to expire at the end of the year.

NASCAR has presented the teams with a new proposal and it was clear Polk was unimpressed: He pinned a sheet of paper to the back of his shirt that read: “Please don't ask me about my Charter. I don't want to disparage NASCAR and lose it.”

Hamlin said Polk wore the sign out of “frustration” and indicated major concessions are going to need to be made to get the teams and NASCAR closer to a deal.

“One side will have to wake up and be reasonable. That’s all," he said. When asked which side needs to offer givebacks, Hamlin was blunt: “Not ours.”

There are currently 36 charters in NASCAR for a 40-car field each week in the top-level Cup Series. A charter guarantees the 36 cars entry into all 38 races each season, and a portion of the television package and purses depending on each team's charter value.

Four charters remain held back by NASCAR, earmarked for a future manufacturer that might join Chevrolet, Ford or Toyota in the Cup Series. A summer proposal from NASCAR suggested those charters should go to NASCAR and that the France family that runs the series should be able to field teams.

Hamlin in his weekly podcast said that NASCAR's newest proposal included an anti-disparagement clause.

“They do not want you speaking negatively. That's a new add to the charter agreement,“ Hamlin said on “Actions Detrimental.” “NASCAR's got their stance and the teams have theirs. We'll just see where this goes the next few weeks.”

The most recent charters were signed in 2015 and run through the end of the year, when the current television packages expire. Negotiations have been ongoing for more than two years, with teams content to allow NASCAR to negotiate a new media package first so the teams have a clear idea how much money will be coming.

“I think for a very, very long time, NASCAR has said this is our family business and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to participate” Hamlin said. “I think the world has changed since that mentality was established a long, long time ago by Bill France Sr. and while I certainly respect everything they have built, and that they have done a good job, at a certain point, you have to update your thinking or else you will hold the sport back."

Hamlin is the only driver/owner willing to speak publicly about the dispute. Brad Keselowski is a part-owner in RFK Racing, but team executive Steve Newmark does the negotiating. Justin Marks of Trackhouse Racing is among the new wave of younger drivers, but it is typically Hamlin who fields all the questions.

Hamlin said he thinks NASCAR deliberately dragged its feet in negotiations so that smaller teams will feel panicked into signing whatever NASCAR puts in front of them.

“There’s probably a handful of teams that are just happy to take any deal that they can get, and there’s others with some business sense that says this is unreasonable,” Hamlin said.

So the bigger teams are pushing back. As NASCAR shoots footage for the a second season on Netflix, teams have made it clear they will not grant the rights to use images or likeness of their branding without a charter agreement. NASCAR, meanwhile, said teams can't use its branding for promotional material.

Hamlin noted that “right now, NASCAR owns this and teams own that, and we compete for the same sponsors.”

“All we do is compete against each other instead of locking arms and growing the sport together,” he said. “In my opinion, until we do that, we are just going to continue spinning our tires.”

No one is really sure what will happen when the charters expire at the end of the year.

Hamlin said he wasn’t sure how NASCAR could legally repossess a charter from a team that not only purchased it but met all the performance requirements to hold onto it through the life of the current deals. He thinks NASCAR is in for a surprise if it starts seizing charters and goes into 2025 without an agreement.

“I think it’s more just a frustration of a lack of acknowledgement that the teams have built this sport. (Rick) Hendrick and (Joe) Gibbs putting superstars on the race track – that is what has built the sport,” Hamlin said. "Fans do not come to see cars going around in circles. If they would, then we would sell-out ARCA races, but they don’t. They come to sellout on Sunday to watch Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch.

“So, who provides them the cars? And that’s the teams. Who spends the money? That’s the teams. Whose sponsors go buy a suite? That’s the teams. Whose sponsors activate in their midways? That’s the teams,” he said. "That’s the tough part that, they just don’t value us.”

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