Now that the media rights deal is secured for 2025, NASCAR President Steve Phelps is focused on the charter agreement. Teams and fans have varied opinions on the charter agreement and if it should go away, stay the same, or change slightly.
For Steve Phelps, the charter negotiations are ongoing. NASCAR and the teams definitely have differing ideas on the whole ordeal. Teams see the charters as their fallback. Spire Motorsports just bought the Live Fast charter for $40 million, so they have a ton of value.
Basically, you have to have a charter to compete for championships and to be part of the revenue-sharing agreement. The charters essentially give teams “franchise” status. NASCAR is insistent that the agreement changes.
“We’re going to come to a very good result for the race teams and the industry as a whole,” Steve Phelps said in an interview with Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic. “I’ve said that to our race teams and, honestly, anyone who’s listened for the last year. I believe that to be true. Would it be a fair deal? It’ll be a deal that will help the teams with their enterprise value to be more competitive on the racetrack.
“It’s a negotiation, but we’ll end up in a good place. I’m very confident about that. And then what’s next? It’s going to be continued integration of the stakeholders of our sport. And I know that sounds kind of amorphous and it’s kind of BS. It’s not. It is the single most important thing that will lead to significant growth of our industry.”
So, it sounds like things are going to change. Exactly how much? For now, just Steve Phelps and a few others know the answer to that.
Steve Phelps gets big props from Denny Hamlin
In that same piece from The Athletic, Denny Hamlin weighed in on Phelps and his job as NASCAR President. Hamlin has been around the sport for a long time. He’s seen ideas come and go and the sport go through ups and downs and controversy galore.
However, despite disagreements on certain things, like the charter agreement – Hamlin has a positive outlook on Steve Phelps and his tenure as president.
“Steve has had a tremendous amount of responsibility put on his shoulders,” Hamlin said, via The Athletic. “I have the utmost respect for him and what he is as a leader. He’s one of the first guys that will wish you luck on the grid on every Sunday, walking in nearly every car and showing his presence and showing his leadership. And then probably as soon as he gets done with the grid, having to go and have tough meetings with executives on our TV deals or tracks or something. The guy works as hard as anyone in the industry. We’re all very lucky to have him.”
Now, we will see how Hamlin feels after the charter negotiations are over. However, I think he has a good idea of the direction that the whole thing is going. As a driver and team owner, Hamlin is very invested in how the charter deal shakes out in the end.
Steve Phelps is doing a lot to bring NASCAR into the modern sports world. The new media rights agreement and future charter negotiations will be a major part of the sport’s growth moving forward.