NBA legend Michael Jordan and his NASCAR team are now among two teams suing the stock car racing organization and its owner for what the lawsuits allege are NASCAR’s monopoly over the sport and unfair terms for the teams, drivers and sponsors.
Front Row Motorsports and 23XI Racing, a team co-owned by Jordan, jointly filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and its owner, CEO Jim France, in federal court in North Carolina’s Western District.
Their lawsuit alleges that NASCAR and France used “anticompetitive and exclusionary practices” to “enrich themselves at the expense of the premier stock car racing teams.”
Jordan and others allege that NASCAR operates without transparency and has control over the sport to such a degree that it unfairly benefits the organization at the expense of owners, sponsors, drivers and fans.
NASCAR, unlike most other professional sports leagues, is a privately owned and operated company by the France family.
Its current chief, Jim France took over the CEO role in 2016 for his nephew, ex-NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France, who took an “indefinite leave” after his arrest in New York on charges of drunken driving and drug possession.
The suit states, “No other major professional sport in North America is run by a single family that enriches themselves through these kinds of unchecked monopolistic practices.”
