Dale Earnhardt Jr. has some interesting thoughts on what Jim France had to say about permanent NASCAR charter agreements. On the Dale Jr. Download podcast, Earnhardt responded to the NASCAR CEO telling teams the organization can’t offer permanent charters because, “We can only support you as long as we are being supported,” per Ryan McGee of ESPN.
“I see Jim’s point, and I hope that the teams can move forward and agree, but I also think that there’ll be other opportunities down the road to bring that argument back up,” Earnhardt said. “The teams are alwasys going to want to make the charters permanent. If I owned the charter, I would certainly be telling you right now that I want my charter to be permanent.
“When the deal get renegotiated down the road however long this one new agreement will be, the teams will have a chance to argue this again. It’s now like the end of the road in terms of this conversation making the charters forever. It just might not happen this round in terms of the new charter agreement.”
Earnhardt also said that his “favotite NASCAR” was when Bill France Jr. and hsi father were running things. “They were so clever in how they would negotiate with the teams and how they would help the teams understand their position,” Earnhardt said.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. shares more thoughts on the charter agreement
“[Ryan] McGee says as much, hypothetically he can hear Bill France Jr. telling the teams we took something that you said was worth nothing and made it worth something. Jim is bascially saying this is a far a we can go. They can’t build this bridge to nowhere becaue there’s no guarantee that the media rights will always be this lucrative and that the TV deals will last forever. There’s no roadmap in front of us that says this is where we’re headed in terms of how people will consume our races.”
Under the current model, charters are not permanent fanchises like the setup in other professional sports leagues. Teams can lose their charters due to poor performance on the racetrack or failing to field cars consistently. Race teams are arguing that not having permanent charters makes it more challenging to attract outside investors and invest in their operations.
“If you had permanent charters, then you could create a revenue stream, either with new investors or different types of sponsorships that would subsidize that type of variance between ownership and the league,” NBA legend and 23 XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan told the New York Times. “That’s a big, big miss right there. If you don’t correct that, this sport’s going to die. Not because of the competition aspect, but because economically it doesn’t make sense for any business people.”
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