23XI and Front Row call NASCAR
countersuit on antitrust claims an "act of desperation"
[March 27, 2025]
By JENNA FRYER
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The two teams suing NASCAR over antitrust
allegations said Wednesday in a filing that a countersuit against
23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and Michael Jordan's manager is
“an act of desperation" and asked that it be dismissed.
NASCAR's countersuit contends that Jordan business manager Curtis
Polk “willfully” violated antitrust laws by orchestrating
anticompetitive collective conduct in connection with the most
recent charter agreements.
23XI and Front Row were the only two organizations out of 15 that
refused to sign the new agreements, which were presented to the
teams last September in a take-it-or-leave-it offer 48 hours before
the start of NASCAR’s playoffs.
The charters were fought for by the teams ahead of the 2016 season
and twice have been extended. The latest extension is for seven
years to match the current media rights deal and guarantee 36 of the
40 spots in each week’s field to the teams that hold the charters,
as well as other financial incentives. 23XI — co-owned by Jordan —
and Front Row refused to sign and sued, alleging NASCAR and the
France family that owns the stock car series are a monopoly.
Wednesday's filing claims that NASCAR’s counterclaim is
“retaliatory” and “does not allege the facts necessary to state a
claim.”
“NASCAR is using the counterclaim to engage in litigation
gamesmanship, with the transparent objective of intimidating the
other racing teams by threatening them with severe consequences if
they support Plaintiffs’ challenge to the unlawful NASCAR monopoly,”
the response says.
23XI and Front Row have requested NASCAR's counterclaim be dismissed
because it "fails at the threshold because it does not allege facts
plausibly showing a contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint
of trade.
“The counterclaim allegations instead show each racing team
individually determining whether or not to agree to NASCAR’s demands
through individual negotiations — the opposite of a conspiracy.”
The filing also defends Polk, who was specifically targeted in
NASCAR's counterclaim as the mastermind of the contentious two-year
battle between the teams and the stock car series. NASCAR claimed in
its countersuit that Polk threatened a team boycott of Daytona 500
qualifying races, but the teams argued Wednesday “there is no
allegation that such a threatened boycott of qualifying races ever
took place.”
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Hornets managing partner Curtis Polk, left, looks on during a news
conference for the NBA basketball team in Charlotte, N.C., Tuesday,
April 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, file)
“None of NASCAR’s factual claims fit into the very
narrow categories of blatantly anti-competitive agreements that
courts summarily condemn as per se unlawful,” the teams said.
Jordan, through a spokesperson, sent word to The Associated Press
that Polk speaks for him and the NBA icon views any attack on Polk
as “personal.”
NASCAR's attorney has warned that a consequence of the 23XI and
Front Row lawsuit could lead to the abolishment of the charter
system outright — NASCAR argues it would be a consequence and not
what NASCAR actually wants to do — and that 23XI first made this
personal by naming NASCAR chairman Jim France in the original
antitrust lawsuit.
But, the teams struck back at the threat to eliminate the charter
system in Wednesday's filing. It alleges it is an empty threat meant
to scare the 13 organizations that did sign the charter agreements.
The claim also says Front Row should be dismissed from NASCAR's
countersuit because “NASCAR does not allege any specific conduct by
Front Row or its owners or employees to support a claim that it
participated in the alleged conspiracy.”
“The other allegations in the counterclaim against Front Row are all
entirely conclusory or improper group pleading that seeks to lump in
Front Row with 23XI Racing, Mr. Polk, and “others,” while never
identifying what — if anything — Front Row Motorsports itself has
done to purportedly participate in the alleged conspiracy.”
There is no deadline for a judge’s decision.
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