NASCAR attempted to assuage concerns over its charter offer to teams last week, and some teams came away from the meeting feeling more encouraged about the prospects of a deal, sources said. The meeting was the quarterly Team Owner Council gathering that was first established when the initial charter system was founded in 2015 as a way to give teams greater governance of the sport.
NASCAR and its premier series teams are still unlikely to finalize a complete agreement until after NASCAR strikes its next media rights deals, sources say, a tactical battle that NASCAR has won. It remains a point of frustration for teams because they originally went public with their discontent in 2022 over the current state of the owner model in a bid to jumpstart talks. The term for the new media rights deals isn‘t until 2025; it‘s not yet clear when NASCAR will have those deals done by, but it could be by late this year.
Nonetheless, sources say that at the quarterly team owner council meeting last week, NASCAR President Steve Phelps gave greater clarity on NASCAR‘s current offer to teams including how the sport intends to divvy up the financial split between the 36 charters, which are NASCAR‘s version of franchising. Teams do not own the sanctioning body itself, or any part of it, a key difference from stick-and-ball leagues.
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