CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A federal judge has ordered a dozen organizations that compete on NASCAR’s highest level to provide 11 years of financial data to the stock-car sanctioning body as part of an ongoing legal fight, but he has also sharply limited what they need to share.
A day after hearing arguments from both sides, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell of the Western District of North Carolina said Wednesday that the information will “allow NASCAR to have much of the arguably relevant substance of the requested information, while protecting the legitimate interests” of the 12 organizations that compete on the top-tier Cup Series, some of them with multiple cars.
They had raised concerns that the private financial details could end up being made public and would hurt competitive balance.
Under the decision, the teams must provide top-line data — total revenue, total costs, net profits and losses — dating to 2014. The teams and NASCAR were ordered to settle on an independent accounting firm to handle the details by Friday, with that work paid for by NASCAR.
Earlier this week, attorneys for 12 of the 15 organizations in the Cup Series argued against disclosing their financial records to become part of the antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR. They are not parties in the ongoing suit filed last year by 23XI Racing — which is co-owned by Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, retired NBA star Michael Jordan and Curtis Polk, the basketball great’s longtime business partner — and Front Row Motorsports, owned by entrepreneur Bob Jenkins.
Of the 15, those are the only two organizations that refused last September to sign nonnegotiable offers on a new agreement regarding charters, NASCAR’s equivalent of a franchise in other professional sports leagues. In the case of a Cup Series, it guarantees entry to each week’s points race and a stable revenue stream. Of the 13 teams that signed, only Kaulig Racing has submitted the financial documents NASCAR subpoenaed as part of discovery.
Teams have long argued that NASCAR is not financially viable and they need a greater revenue stream and a more permanent length on the charter agreements, which presently have expiration dates and can be revoked by NASCAR.
If the two teams’ lawsuit is not settled, it is scheduled to go to trial in December.
Numbers in on Prime
LOS ANGELES — Amazon’s Prime Video averaged 2.16 million viewers for its five Cup Series races.
This was the first season the streaming service carried NASCAR events under a seven-year rights deal.
The average was down 17.6% from last year’s average of 2.62 million for the five races, which were numbers 13 through 17 on the Cup Series schedule. Two of last year’s races in the comparable period were on Fox.
The decrease in average audience is comparable to other sports that have switched their packages from broadcast to streaming.
The average age of the viewers for the Prime races was 56.1, nearly seven years younger than audiences that had watched the first 12 races (62.8).