Teams hire top antitrust lawyer
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR teams have hired one of the country’s top antitrust and sports lawyers to advise them in their ongoing dispute with the family-owned stock car series over a new revenue-sharing model.
The decision to hire Jeffrey Kessler, partner and co-executive chair of Winston & Strawn LLP, followed a Saturday meeting at Daytona International Speedway that included the majority owner from each of the 15 chartered teams in NASCAR. Although the teams invited NASCAR representatives to attend, none did.
Kessler’s hiring was revealed to The Associated Press on Sunday, the eve of the rain-postponed Daytona 500, by the five members of the team ownership negotiating committee. It comes amid a breakdown in negotiations between teams and NASCAR that led the 36 chartered teams to decline last month to extend their exclusive negotiating window with the sanctioning body on the existing deal.
The current charter agreement expires at the end of this season, and two years of talks were stalled by NASCAR’s ongoing negotiations on a new $7.7 billion television rights deal announced in early December. NASCAR’s economic offer to the teams came shortly after but with zero room for the teams to counter.
“We want to make a deal, we are just looking for a fair deal,” Curtis Polk, a part owner of 23XI Racing and member of the teams’ negotiating committee, told the AP. “There is no give and take. We’ve been told ‘This is all there is; there is no flexibility.’ That’s not a negotiation.”
Kessler has only been retained so far to help advise the teams in their negotiations. Kessler most recently successfully represented Division I college football and basketball players in a landmark antitrust case that led to financial stipends for athletes. He also led the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team in its successful fight for equal pay as well as litigations for current free agency rules in the NBA and the NFL.
The issues between NASCAR and the race teams are far beyond revenue and charters, which are essentially a version of the franchise model used in nearly all professional sports. The teams have asked for the charters to become permanent, which NASCAR has not even considered.
But after a Saturday meeting that included Rick Hendrick, NASCAR’s winningest owner who’s launching his 40th anniversary season, Roger Penske, Joe Gibbs and Michael Jordan, among others, it became clear that having a franchise to leave as part of their legacy remains one of the more pressing topics.
The negotiating team said it couldn’t even come to a resolution in which charters would last seven years but could be revokable by NASCAR based on failing to meet competitive standards. NASCAR has apparently stopped negotiating with the committee and is instead trying to speak to teams individually.
“I think that this whole thing is such a monopoly that you kind of get shut down in different areas, you’re allowed in some places, but not in others,” said three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, owner of 23XI Racing with Jordan and Polk.