CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michael Jordan, the legendary former NBA player, stepped into the courtroom spotlight during a pivotal NASCAR antitrust trial on Friday. A lifelong enthusiast of stock car racing, Jordan expressed that he felt compelled to initiate legal action, aiming to reform a business model he believes inadequately compensates the teams and drivers who take significant risks to sustain the sport.

For an hour, Jordan addressed a courtroom filled to capacity, drawing lighthearted remarks from both the judge and a defense attorney. He detailed the reasons why his team, 23XI, allied with Front Row Motorsports to challenge the United States’ premier auto racing series in court.

“It was necessary for someone to confront the system,” Jordan conveyed to the jury in his characteristically calm manner. “In meetings with veteran owners, I witnessed years of attempts to instigate change. As a newcomer unfettered by fear, I felt equipped to confront NASCAR. It was essential to reevaluate the sport from a fresh perspective.”

Jordan’s much-anticipated testimony came on the heels of compelling statements from Heather Gibbs, the daughter-in-law of renowned race team owner Joe Gibbs. She recounted the frantic six-hour window during which teams were pressured to sign an extension, or else lose their charters, which ensure consistent revenue throughout NASCAR’s 38-race calendar.

“The contract was something no one in business would agree to under normal circumstances,” said Gibbs, who also works as a licensed real estate agent. “It felt like an ultimatum: sign or have nothing.”

In NASCAR, charters function similarly to franchises in other sports, assuring that each chartered vehicle competes in every race and receives a fixed payout from the series. Introduced in 2016, the charter system has been a point of contention during protracted negotiations for an extension, with teams advocating for the charters’ permanence to secure financial stability.

When NASCAR refused to make them permanent and gave the teams six hours in September 2024 to sign the 112-page extension, 23XI and Front Row Motorsports were the only two organizations out of 15 to refuse. They instead filed the antitrust suit and the trial opened Monday to hear their allegations that NASCAR is a monopolistic bully. 23XI is co-owned by Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and Front Row is owned by fast food franchiser Bob Jenkins.

Jordan testified that 23XI bought a third charter late in 2024 for $28 million, even with all the uncertainty.

“I’m pretty sure they know I love to win,” the six-time NBA champion said. “Denny convinced me getting a third driver improved our chances to win, so I dove in.”

Like other witnesses this week, Jordan described a NASCAR that refused to discuss options or potential changes to the charter system, which he supports. He was asked why 23XI didn’t sign the extensions last fall.

“One, I didn’t think it was economically viable. Two, it said you could not sue NASCAR, that was an antitrust violation, I felt. Three, they gave us an ultimatum I didn’t think was fair to 23XI,” Jordan said, adding: “I wanted a partnership and permanent charters wasn’t even a consideration. The pillars that the teams wanted, no one on the NASCAR side even negotiated or compromised. They were not even open-minded to welcome those conversations, so this is where we ended up.”

Jordan referred to the NBA business model, which shares approximately half its revenue with players, far more than NASCAR.

“The revenue split was far less than any business I’ve ever been a part of. We didn’t think we’d ever get to what basketball was getting but we wanted to move in that direction,” he said. “The thing I see in NASCAR that I think is absent is a shared responsibility of growth as well as loss.”

Jordan said he owns 60% of 23XI and has invested $35 million to $40 million in the team. Jenkins testified earlier this week that his team has never turned a profit since launching his NASCAR team in the early 2000s and estimates he’s lost $100 million, even while winning the Daytona 500 in 2021.

Heather Gibbs earlier told the jury how she became co-owner of Joe Gibbs Racing the day after her husband, Coy, unexpectedly died in his sleep the same night their son, Ty, won NASCAR’s second-tier Xfinity Series championship in 2022. Coy Gibbs had moved into a leadership role with JGR following the death of his older brother, J.D., in 2019.

Because Gibbs had lost both his sons and had built the team as a legacy for his family, his daughter-in-law took an active role in the organization and personally participated in negotiations for the charter extensions. When NASCAR made its final offer at 6 p.m. on a Friday night with just hours to sign, the agreement did not include permanent charters. Gibbs testified that the organization was devastated.

“Everything was going so fast, the legacy of Coy, the legacy of J.D., everyone at JGR was very upset,” she told the jury. She said her father-in-law called NASCAR chairman Jim Franc,e pleading for a resolution.

“Joe said, ‘Jim, you can’t do this,’” she said. “And Jim was done with the conversation.”

Heather Gibbs said she had to leave to take her son to a baseball game in Chapel Hill and left worried about her father-in-law, who was 84 at the time.

“I left him sitting in the dark, listening to his blood sugar monitors going off,” she testified. “We decided we had to sign. We can’t lose everything. I did not think it was a fair deal to the teams.”

Joe Gibbs is both a Hall of Fame NASCAR owner and NFL Hall of Fame coach. He led the Washington football team to three Super Bowl titles and JGR has won five Cup Series championships. JGR has 450 employees, charters for four Cup cars and relies solely on outside sponsorship and investors to keep the team afloat. The team will mark its 35th season next year and Gibbs told the jury that JGR needs permanent charters to protect its investment in NASCAR.

“It’s the most important point, a permanent place in their history books,” she testified. “It is absolutely vital to the teams for us to know we have security, it can’t be taken away, to know what we’ve invested in is ours.”

Teams told NASCAR they were fighting for financial survival

On Thursday, NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell testified that teams approached the sanctioning body in early 2022 asking for an improved revenue model, arguing the system was unsustainable.

O’Donnell was at the meeting with representatives from four teams, who asked that the negotiating window on a new charter agreement open early because they were fighting for their financial survival. The negotiating window was not supposed to open until July 2023.

O’Donnell testified that in that first meeting, four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, now vice chair of Hendrick Motorsports, asked specifically if the France family was “open to a new model.”

Ben Kennedy, great-grandson of NASCAR’s founder, told Gordon yes.

But O’Donnell testified that chairman France was opposed to a new revenue model.

Both sides speak of financial difficulties

The extensions that began this year upped the guaranteed money for every chartered car to $12.5 million in annual revenue, from $9 million. Hamlin and Jenkins have both testified it costs $20 million to bring a single car to the track for all 38 races. That figure does not include any overhead, operating costs or a driver’s salary, and Jenkins admitted he doesn’t spend that much.

NASCAR has argued it has made huge improvements for the teams as it works to grow the sport. O’Donnell testified that NASCAR lost $55 million in the three years it held a race on the downtown streets of Chicago, and $6 million when it raced in June in Mexico City. But he said those events were critical in widening viewership and signing Amazon as a media partner.

“It was a strategic investment because if not for that, Amazon would not have become a broadcast partner,” he testified.

Odds and ends

Judge Kenneth Bell admonished both sides over the slow pace of the trial, which was initially expected to take two weeks. Kessler said he didn’t anticipate wrapping up the teams’ side until the middle of next week.

NASCAR plans to call Roger Penske as a witness. Penske, who is reluctant to testify, has said he’s only available next Monday. Christopher Yates, lead attorney for NASCAR, asked that Penske be allowed to testify that day but Kessler objected because it would disrupt the flow of his presentation.

Bell sided with Kessler and told NASCAR to figure it out with Penske because “federal trials are an inconvenience.”

The judge also said stretching the trial to three weeks is not acceptable, and while he’s hesitant to step in to push the pace along, he urged both sides to counsel their witnesses to stop being “reluctant to answer even the most harmless questions.”