Denny Hamlin Talks About His Concerns About the Halted Charter Negotiations With NASCAR

NASCAR Cup Series charters are a system that allow every other team to benefit from the income purse. However, the primary teams like Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Penske, and more have now demanded a change in the income split. The cost of acquiring and running a Cup team has skyrocketed. This has seen the teams make little to no profits as sponsors are hard to come by and the expense of running the time is weighing heavily on them season by season.

The current charter deal expires at the end of 2024, which leaves the teams with very little time to get their demands fulfilled. NASCAR, meanwhile, is playing hardball and the negotiations meeting that was to be held in December last year was deserted. Being vocal about the stand of the teams and demanding transparency in the process, Joe Gibbs Racing’s No.11, Denny Hamlin has now opined his concerns about the negotiations.

Denny Hamlin explains the slow and painstaking process of charter negotiations

On the flip side of this story, NASCAR has pocketed a good $7.7 billion dollar with the new TV & Streaming deal. So it looks like they do hold leverage in that situation while negotiating a fresh charter deal with the teams. Addressing the delays and concerns regarding this issue, Denny Hamlin opined that the whole process is slow and lacks transparency.

Speaking in an interview with Fox NASCAR reporter Bob Pockrass, Hamlin explained the concerns, saying, “The whole process is slow and I think that we’d rather had this done months and months ago but it’s been a slow process. Just to try to get any answers and transparency we needed. So it’s gonna be tough to meet the deadline for sure.”

He also responded to the speculations of deadline being extended for up to 12 months. “I think it’s gonna take some time and it’s just a matter of how long NASCAR wants to drag it out really. You worry about deal fatigue but its been typically the way between NASCAR and the teams for so many years. So it’s tough to get two sides to agree on a lot of issues.”

NASCAR surely wouldn’t want the teams to join a rival series. And teams, on the other hand, would like to stay put with NASCAR provided their demands are met. However, in a deadlock situation, NASCAR has proposed some improvements for the deal to be finalized.

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NASCAR’s proposed options tabled to Cup team ahead of final negotiations

As per the reports of SBJ, NASCAR is offering to increase the payouts to 42% from 2025 to ’31, which currently stands at 35%. The second viable option put forth by them was to pay the team 39% currently and offer 49% for the next cycle. This will see the teams close the gap on the 50-50 split that they have long been mulling. However, nothing has been inked and teams are yet to approve any of the above-mentioned methodologies.

The prospect of the charter negotiations extended well into the 2023 season is not what both the teams and NASCAR would have wanted. In fact, nothing concrete coming out during the off-season suggests that both the parties are still weighing in their options and this could well go down the wire. The 2024 season will be soon getting underway with the weekend clash at the Coliseum before the teams head to Daytona for their first points race of the season.

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