IF JORDAN LEAVES, A FOOLISH NASCAR KNOWS THE DEMISE OF BULLS AND WHITE SOX
The racing circuit allows a federal judge to rule against Jordan, who doesn’t want to sign a revenue-sharing charter, and after a championship run Sunday, why wouldn’t he flee a series beneath him?
Only a ninny would mess with Michael Jordan, who always loves the dare. NASCAR is about to chase him away legally, when America yawns at stock car racing, so chairman Jim France might want to shake cold hands with the 88-year-old sports skeleton that is Jerry Reinsdorf. Remember when he wreckingballed the Chicago Bulls dynasty?
He lost his basketball way for more than a quarter-century and just finished a 121-loss season as his baseball team rots away. This month, France chooses to employ the same corporate lunacy. Jordan carries a net worth of $3.5 billion and prefers not to share revenues as the co-owner of a team — and lost in court Friday. He’ll continue to pursue an antitrust lawsuit against the series, and if a federal judge rules against him until year’s end, France could start the 2025 season without the greatest athlete of our lives.
How stupid is that?
Rather than make a wise deal with Jordan, whose prominence is high above pit row, France and president Steve Phelps are challenging 23XI Racing and a second balking team from Front Row Motorsports. Jordan’s lawyers have referred to NASCAR bosses as “monopolistic bullies,” which draws scowls from NBA fans who knew him as the ultimate bully. But the executives don’t care if Jordan loses and will make him enter the circuit as, well, a G Leaguer. His crew won’t have a guaranteed spot in 38 races next year. He won’t receive the same revenues as 13 other teams that agreed to share revenues. Because he won’t sign a charter, they’ll make him suffer thanks to his “frontal assault on the charter system,” which he describes as a monopoly that uses “anticompetitive and exclusionary practices” to “enrich themselves at the expense” of premier teams.
“They have been calling NASCAR a series of names that undermine NASCAR’s brand and goodwill,” attorney Chris Yates balked at Jordan. “NASCAR only wants to enter into charter agreements with teams who want to work collectively to grow the sport.”
When a federal judge agreed with NASCAR in Charlotte — where the league has been based for decades in old tobacco smoke — Jordan is looking at a loss. He has a race left Sunday in Phoenix, where driver Tyler Reddick has an outside chance among four finalists to win a championship. Beyond that, no agreement means Jordan might walk away and play … minor-league baseball.
Or smoke cigars in Jupiter, either Florida or outer space.
“I put all my cards on the table,” Jordan told reporters after a court appearance. “I think we did a good job of that. But I’m looking forward to winning the championship this weekend.”
Why accept no as an answer now? Every time he has waited for a dope, Jordan wins. Reinsdorf wouldn’t renegotiate an eight-year contract — for $25 MILLION DOLLARS — and almost lost him to the New York Knicks before finally producing one-year deals for $30 million and $33 million. In 1998, after Reinsdorf and Jerry Krause sent everyone away to start their own “dynasty,” Jordan quit for three years before returning to the Washington Wizards. NASCAR thinks he isn’t necessary after signing media rights deals for $7.7 billion with Fox Sports, NBC, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon and The CW.
“We are not going to negotiate in the media about charters, ever,” Phelps said Friday. “And we are very happy that charters were extended because those were race teams that where the deal that was put on the table for them, the primary big win for the race teams was money. I won’t go into what the money split looks like, but what I will say is that the amount of money, it now puts the race teams, starting in ’25, as the single largest beneficiary of our media deal. And we did that because the race teams were upside down financially.”
Jordan wants control. NASCAR refuses, allowing Yates to say Jordan should purchase “another NBA team” after selling his majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets for $3 billion. This is ugly. Didn’t Jordan win the national title for North Carolina with a 1982 jumpshot? Didn’t he take over the state’s NBA franchise for 13 years? Suddenly, the fuel bums think they’re the Tar Heels?
In an interview with Puck this week, Phelps said, “Obviously, we want a court victory. I can’t get into the lawsuit, and I can’t speak to why Michael and Denny Hamlin decided to take this action. We negotiated in good faith for over two years. We had the majority of the teams — 13 of 15, representing 32 charters — extend with us. I love that Michael Jordan is in our sport. I personally like Michael and think he’s good for the sport. Do I like that he’s taking this course of action? I don’t.
“Would I like to put it behind us? Yes, I would. I’m hopeful it can be somewhat speedy. But for us, it’s going to be business as usual. We’ve got races to run. We’re looking to grow. We’ve got new media partners. There’s lots of momentum. I just want to make sure that this is not a distraction.”
It’s a 10-car wreck of a distraction. When judge Frank Whitney’s decision was announced during NASCAR’s “State of the Sport” conference at Phoenix Raceway, chief operating officer Steve O’Donnell said, “You can’t make it up, for the timing.”
Jordan told The Athletic: “I wouldn’t have filed it if I didn’t think I could win. We want a fair deal, but this wasn’t fair. I didn’t just file it for me. It’s for everyone.”
Do not be shocked if Reddick becomes Steve Kerr and hits the winning shot. The crew chief, Billy Scott, thinks he has Jordan’s approval. “He said he’s willing to pass me the ball if time is running down, that he believes in me,” he said. “Hearing that is what gives you the confidence to keep believing in what we’re doing.”
A victory would give Jordan the perfect runway to leave NASCAR.
Then, America would know nothing about the sport in 2025.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.