Denny Hamlin rips NASCAR over refusal to budge on new charter agreement
As a driver and a team owner, Denny Hamlin has a lot of hats that he wears in the NASCAR industry, and he is involved in charter negotiations. These negotiations are going to be vital to how the sport operates in the next seven years.
Denny Hamlin has not been happy with NASCAR during these negotiations. He believes that NASCAR is trying to keep record revenue to themselves and not share with the teams. Despite a $7.7 billion TV deal over the next seven years, the governing body hasn’t moved much if rumors are true.
Teams want more revenue sharing, and they want their operating costs to be met by NASCAR. Talking to Kenny Wallace on Kenny Conversation, Hamlin opened up about how everything is going.
“Like, that’s where it [Race Team Alliance] kind of started, right?” Hamlin explained. “How can we come together and start to streamline some of our costs, because the cost just keeps getting higher and higher and higher and higher, and sponsorship is starting to level off. As it went over time, sponsorship started to decline a little bit, ratings declined with it, and the teams were the ones who felt the most pressure by that, right? There’s salaries that got cut, drivers, employees, everything. Everything just started getting cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.”
The NASCAR Cup Series owners, and Denny Hamlin, just want their fair share.
Denny Hamlin knows Jim France won’t renegotiate
One of the most interesting points that Denny Hamlin made while speaking to Kenny Wallace had to do with past history. Team owners already went to Jim France after the 2016 negotiations. They went to him to get extra money or cost-cutting measures.
However, NASCAR and France denied them.
“So, they went to Jim asking for help and received back quite simply, ‘Sorry you cut your deal back in 2016 and you’re going to live by what that deal is.’ This was five or so years ago they came to Jim saying, at least give us a break on our hard cards,” Hamlin continued. “Nope, ain’t gonna do nothing for you. Live by the deal that you cut. So that put an emphasis in my mind, to us saying, we better get this deal right then. Because he ain’t gonna come back and retrade this deal four years from now, right?
“We better get it right, now. What we’re up against are other leagues that have locked arms, and decided that they are going to lock arms with the league and then grow the sport together. NASCAR does that poorly than any other sport by far. Ask any sponsor that tries to come in they say it’s the most complicated sport to ever participate in because the tracks own this real estate, NASCAR owns this, the teams own that, like, it’s not homologated, I guess you could say.”
Denny Hamlin has been around for a while. He knows how NASCAR operates. Right now the Cup Series teams are unified. Will that mean a historic contract agreement between the teams and NASCAR?
Fans want to see the stars. They want their favorite teams to stick around. It is time for NASCAR to get modern and look and operate like a modern sports league.