The 23XI and Front Row Motorsports v NASCAR antitrust trial ended in a considerable victory for Denny Hamlin in the form of a settlement but now comes the real work of growing the discipline in decades to come.
It was more than just a triumph for the team Hamlin co-owns with legendary sportsman Michael Jordan or the team owned by restaurant franchisee and NASCAR lifer Bob Jenkins too. The settlement awarded permanent charters to every organization that competes at the highest level. It also put the teams on a better financial footing and Hamlin says he has received gratitude from his peers on the ownership side.
“Yeah, I’ve heard from most of the team owners in some way shape or form,” Hamlin said. “We really stuck our neck out for all the race teams and there’s no doubt in my mind that it would not have lasted as long as it did if we were just looking to change it for ourselves.
“We were very adamant that whatever changes needed to be given to every team and hopefully they appreciate that.”
But what now?
NASCAR suffered a 14 percent broadcast ratings drop year-over-year. And while that was largely within projections moving five races to streaming and having fewer and fewer races on broadcast television, this is still an industry with plenty of room to grow.
Hamlin says the landscape needs ‘a substantial investment’ either from NASCAR or an outside private equity investor.
“We need someone to come in and invest like billions into heavy promotion, heavy upgrades on everything,” Hamlin said. “And while it might come to a short term loss, it will certainly have long-term gain.
“We saw what happened with Liberty Media, what they did with Formula 1, and influxed a lot of money into the sport and it took off. That’s just the way in works nowadays. I think that’s the kind of thing you need.”
Hamlin praised NASCAR for its marketing approach in 2026 with a grittier tone and its ‘Hell Yeah’ initiative.
“I think that that’s the kind of thing that you need,” Hamlin said. “I’ve been very happy wotj the direction and promotion this season with their social and digital content. I believe it’s the right direction but it needs something big to take it back into the growth phase we’re all hoping for.
“We can tread water. We can do that. But I think it’s going to take a significant amount to really grow this thing.”
The current charter agreement does allow for private equity firms to invest in teams. NASCAR itself has also invested in its facilities over the past decade with major renovations of Daytona, Talladega, Phoenix, Richmond and now Homestead-Miami.
Hamlin says permanent charters are ‘good long term, financially’ for teams but it didn’t change the revenues much year-to-year. The only changes were in revenue sharing.
“It put us on stable ground that next time we’re negotiating, we can’t get told ‘sign it or else,’ so that’s beneficial,” Hamlin said. “It certainly allows private equity to look at these race teams just like someone would look at NASCAR and say ‘okay, that is where I want to put my money in the long term’ because they see growth possibility.
“And there is a lot of possibilities for growth in the sport, both on the team and sport level.”
All told, Hamlin just says it will take 10-15 years to get back into a growth period, just like it took 10-15 years to fall out of the last one at the turn of the century.
“It’s going to take, collectively, a lot of work to kind of dig out of the hole,” Hamlin said. “This didn’t just happen overnight. It’s been a slow grind over the past 10 years and some of it was due to decisions made 15 or 10 years ago
“Turns out, some of those decisions were not the right way to go, and we’re starting to reverse some of those things. But damage has been done and we need to build this thing back up.
“There are still plenty of people in this country that are excited about cars and car racing. We see it in viewership numbers of a lot of different racing series. How can we get them excited about NASCAR? That’s going to take some work and it’s going to take a few years to make that happen.”
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