Denny Hamlin addresses 23XI investor Curtis Polk's Darlington shirt referencing charter negotiations

23XI Racing investor Curtis Polk made a statement ahead of Sunday’s Southern 500 at Darlington, pinning a piece of paper on the back of his shirt which read, “Please don’t ask me about my Charter. I don’t want to disparage NASCAR and lose it.”

23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin revealed on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast that NASCAR inserted an anti-disparagement clause into drafts of the recent charter proposals. Hamlin didn’t want to dive too deep into Polk’s decision to wear the shirt, adding he was surprised to see he did it.

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“I would choose not to speak about [Polk’s shirt], but it kind of speaks for itself, and I can’t believe he actually wore that,” Hamlin said. “They do not want you speaking negatively, that’s a new add to the charter agreement. We’ll see how that goes. NASCAR’s got their stance and the teams have there’s. We’ll just see where this goes the next few weeks.”

23XI Racing’s Curtis Polk fires latest shot in NASCAR charter negotiations

Polk’s message was the latest sign of frustration from teams as charter negotiations continue, as they’ve done for more than two years. Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal reported Tuesday that NASCAR is hoping to reach an agreement on a new governing charter system with its Cup Series teams this week.

The sanctioning body wants to wrap up its new charter deal to avoid having talks spill over throughout the 10-race playoffs. Teams received the latest charter proposal last week and Stern noted in his report that “some teams appear to be at a point, or nearing a point, where they’ll be ready to sign NASCAR’s offer.” Still, it remains to be seen if a deal will get done this week ahead of Sunday’s playoff opener at Atlanta.

“Teams have secured a commitment from NASCAR to increase the amount of media rights revenue they receive in the next term,” per Stern. NASCAR notably announced $7.7 billion in media rights deals with FOX Sports, NBC, Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon for 2025-2031. Teams currently get 25% of broadcast revenue, tracks 65% and NASCAR 10%.

NASCAR charter negotiations in final stages?

Under the current model, in place since 2016, charters are not permanent franchises like the setup in other professional sporting leagues. Teams can lose their charters due to poor performance on the racetrack or failing to field their cars each week. As a result, most teams lose money on a yearly basis. Teams argue that by not having permanent charters, it makes it more difficult to attract outside investors and invest in their operations.

Hamlin’s fellow 23XI co-owner, Michael Jordan, told The New York Times back in May that NASCAR will “die” if the sanctioning body doesn’t offer permanent chargers to teams due to the negative economic impact.

“If you had permanent charters, then you could create a revenue stream, either with new investors or different types of sponsorships that would subsidize that type of variance between ownership and the league,” Jordan said. “That’s a big, big miss right there. If you don’t correct that, this sport’s going to die not because of the competition aspect, but because economically it doesn’t make sense for any business people.”