NASCAR Charters Are Worth $100 Million Now, Racing Executives Say
The financial terms of the legal settlement between 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and NASCAR are confidential, but one thing is clear: The value of every NASCAR team has gone up.
The key result of the settlement was making the 36 NASCAR Cup Series car charters permanent, which makes them a better investment than before.
The charters were originally handed out in 2016 for free to select full-time teams, who were then able to sell and trade them on the open market. Each one guarantees a starting spot in every Cup Series race and a share of NASCAR’s revenue.
The last one sold prior to the settlement ent for $45 million, despite the fact that the charter system could be dissolved in 2031 if a new agreement with NASCAR wasn’t reached.
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Charters are now evergreen, but the revenue sharing terms with NASCAR will still need to be renegotiated at the end of each contract. Even in the case of a team being forced to sell their charter due to rules violations or other matters, it will have the opportunity to sell the charter. In the lead-up to the trial, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports simply had their charters revoked without any compensation for not signing the most recent agreement.
NASCAR team executives now tell Sports Business Journal that the value of the charters immediately increased in the wake of the settlement, with the most optimistic saying they are now worth $90-$100 million.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. speculated on his podcast that they could be worth as much as $150 million. Earnhardt does not own a Cup Series team, but his JR Motorsports operation does race in the Xfinity Series, which does not have a charter system.
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NASCAR will continue to offer up to four open starting positions at races for non-chartered teams to qualify for and JR Motorsports will be entering the Daytona 500 for the second year in a row in 2026, after Justin Allgaier finished ninth in the season-opener this year.
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