His Airness, Michael Jordan, is synonymous with winning. Be it when he plays – he won 6 NBA Championships and ranks 5th among all NBA players for career points in history – or be it with his other adventures. One of his most recent business forays has been in NASCAR, and his bet on Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin looks to be paying off for him.

For Jordan, NASCAR was not a sport he had followed too much or had in-depth knowledge of. But he saw potential in NASCAR as a business prospect and decided to take a chance on Denny Hamlin, his eventual co-owner, and Bubba Wallace.

Before being onboarded by Michael and Denny at the $150 million team, Bubba Wallace was racing for Richard Petty Motorsports. For him, an opportunity to work with MJ and Denny came at a time when not many believed in him. In a video from February 2021, Bubba narrated how he received a call up to 23XI.

“Alright Bubba, in your race team you’re the driver. Who calls you, who texts you? What happens?” he was asked by the host.

Bubba said, “Probably got 60-75 text messages when we announced that night. And I got about 10 unknown numbers and then I get one and I’m like reading the message, and at the bottom, it says “MJ”. And I said let me read that again. Read the message, “MJ”. Huh! Awesome! Michael Jordan is texting me, this is cool.”

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Since joining 23XI Racing, Bubba Wallace’s career has taken a sharp path upwards. While the wins continue to remain evasive for him, he has shown performance satisfactory enough for someone as experienced as Denny Hamlin to continue to back him up.

Bubba Wallace has been on a crusade to change NASCAR

For Bubba, his collaboration with Michael or his performances in the car are not his biggest identifiers. It’s his race, unfortunate as that may be. He is one of the most successful African-American drivers in the history of NASCAR, and he continues to fight for the social causes he believes in.

Bubba said on the show, “I thought it was a start for sure [NASCAR’s decisions on social justice issues]. For years I’ve been asked how do we get more minorities in the sport? I’m like that’s a good question, that’s on the top of NASCAR’s list. And then the Confederate flag rolled around. It’s like there’s so much backlash about this flag from the minority group that we’re trying to attract.”

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“They’re not going to be a part of it until it’s gone. I said let’s make a stance and put our foot down right now. You know we’re opening the door for a whole new family to come in and enjoy our sport.”

There has been a lot of criticism toward Bubba for his work for social causes, and especially his involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement. A certain section of fans have not appreciated it, and resorted to the strawman argument of “do not mix sports with politics.”

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But Bubba is correct in his evaluation – unless the irritants and exclusionist aspects of NASCAR do not go away, it cannot attract more people from minorities. Even from a strictly business perspective, that’s a big loss for an organization that is trying to grow into a global giant.