Hey guys, have you seen that MJ has gone to war with NASCAR? This isn’t a dust-up — it’s full-blown antitrust, scorched-earth warfare. Anybody else on the planet would get steamrolled, but Michael Jordan is the one untouchable figure in American sports you do not pick a fight with. And now he’s dropping receipts, pulling internal documents, and putting NASCAR’s whole business model under a spotlight. This is about to get messy fast.
2 Likes
23XI’s lawyer is Jeffrey Kessler — and that dude is basically the Michael Jordan of antitrust. He’s the guy who broke the NCAA’s amateurism model, forced NIL into existence, hammered the NFL and NBA in multiple labor cases, and has a track record of dismantling sports monopolies whenever he shows up. If Kessler is in the building, someone’s business model is about to get rewritten. NASCAR picked the wrong guy to fight.
2 Likes
Normally I would not give a hot damn, but when it’s a matter that involves fighting a business trust or cartel plus here we have the typical “good ol’ boy” bullshit as well, well I’m in.
Now there are TWO lead plaintiffs in this case and it’s not merely Jordan’s team.
A pair of race teams – 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports – filed an antitrust lawsuit in October 2024, claiming that NASCAR employs monopoly powers to restrict race team revenues and independence.
Team 23XI is five years old, fielding Toyotas driven by Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick and Riley Herbst. Wallace and Reddick have won a combined nine Cup Series races. Herbst made his full-time debut in 2025. The team is co-owned by Denny Hamlin, a future NASCAR Hall of Famer by any measure, who still drives full-time for Joe Gibbs Racing, as well as Jordan – yes, the former NBA megastar – and his longtime business partner Curtis Polk.
Front Row Motorsports is owned by fast-food restaurant magnate Bob Jenkins and has fielded cars in the Cup Series since 2005. The longtime midpack organization has won four Cup races over two decades, most notably the 2021 Daytona 500 with driver Michael McDowell and currently fields a trio of Fords, driven by Noah Gragson, Todd Gilliland and Zane Smith. (No, not the former Atlanta Braves pitcher Zane Smith.)
And the defendant:
NASCAR was founded in 1948 by a group of stock car racers assembled and steered by Daytona Beach businessman Bill France. France served as chairman of NASCAR until 1972, when he handed the wheel over to his eldest son, Bill Jr., who led the organization until he was succeeded by his son Brian in 2003. Today, NASCAR is still owned by the France family, led by Bill Sr.'s younger son, Jim, and Bill Jr.'s daughter, Lesa France Kennedy, as well as commissioner Steve Phelps and president Steve O’Donnell.
I’m one who thinks moonshine should somehow be involved in this tale, for it goes back to the origins of NASCAR as well and is part of the fan culture (and on a separate basis, is also in my family history outside of the US), but then again let’s leave well enough alone on that, given that moonshine is older than the US Constitution.
In fact, moonshine should have its own amendment in the US Constitution, damnit.
2 Likes