Denny Hamlin fires back at charter comment by NASCAR CEO Jim France

Denny Hamlin took to X on Monday to respond to NASCAR CEO Jim France’s claim that the sanctioning body can’t offer permanent charters because they can “only support you as long as we are being supported [by media networks],” as written in Ryan McGee’s latest column for ESPN.

Hamlin fired back, claiming that France is off base with his comment.

Permanent charters don’t cost anything. https://t.co/8wqhniRfnv

— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) June 10, 2024

“Permanent charters don’t cost anything,” Hamlin wrote.

Hamlin’s response to France comes at a very hostile time within the sport, as race teams and NASCAR remain embroiled in negotiations on a new charter agreement. The current agreement ends on Dec. 31, and as of now, it doesn’t appear that much progress is being made on a deal.

What is NASCAR, race teams negotiating over?

At the center of negotiations, race teams’ fight to secure permanent charters. Under the current model, charters are not permanent franchises like the setup in other professional sporting leagues. Team can lose their charters due to poor performance on the racetrack or failing to field their cars week in and week out. As a result, most race teams lose money on a yearly basis. Race 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 Racing co-owner Michael Jordan told The New York Times last month that NASCAR will “die” if the sanctioning body doesn’t offer permanent charters to race 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.”

Without a charter agreement in place, teams such as 23XI have balked at the idea of taking on additional charters. With Stewart-Haas Racing announcing it will close its doors after the 2024 Cup Series season, three charters are available after Front Row Motorsports purchased one for reportedly $20-25 million.

Denny Hamlin explains why 23XI Racing can’t expand until new charter agreement comes

Hamlin said on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast last week that 23XI isn’t interested in obtaining a charter without having a new agreement in place.

“23XI is interested in getting a charter deal done,” Hamlin said. “We don’t — right now, on Jan. 1, 2025, we don’t even have a charter. So, you can’t buy or sell something that doesn’t exist in our eyes. We have two charters till the end of this year. And until we get a charter agreement done, that’s all we have. I mean, I didn’t build that facility to stay a two-car team, but it always has to make financial sense. I’m not going to put myself in a position to where I’m having to shell out millions and millions of dollars every year just to keep this thing going. I will not do that personally.

“So, it has to make financial sense. And the charter agreement needs to be better than it is certainly before I invest any more money in it.”

Asked if there was a resolution in sight, Hamlin didn’t seem so confident.

“Not from what I’ve seen,” Hamlin said. “We got something back last week. But I didn’t see anything there that was much different than what we saw in December.”