CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The second week of the 23XI Racing/Front Row Motorsports vs. NASCAR trial began on Monday, Dec. 8, and the pace slowed way, way down, as only Race Team Alliance Executive Director Jonathan Marshall, who wrapped up his cross-eexamination from Friday, and economist Edward A. Snyder were on the stand.
The cross-examination of Snyder has yet to be complete, so he will be back for questioning first thing Tuesday morning.
With four plaintiff witnesses (an accountant, Steve Phelps, Richard Childress and Jim France) and 16 defendant witnesses that have yet to be questioned, Judge Kenneth D. Bell added an extra hour to the remaining four days of trial, with court now in session from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for day seven and beyond.
The day started a half hour early with an hour of objections from both sides of the aisle, so the jury wasn’t brought into the court room until around 9:30 a.m.
Read all of Frontstretch’s content covering the NASCAR vs. 23XI/FRM antitrust lawsuit here
During the conclusion of his cross-examination, Marshall testified that the U.S. Racing League — a potential competitor to NASCAR that was floated in early 2024 — was ultimately unsuccessful because the teams didn’t want to form a rival league.
More light was shed on the timeline of events on the evening of Sept. 5, 2024, as NASCAR sent out the 2025-31 charter agreements proposals to the teams at 6:08 p.m. ET. At 6:22, just 14 minutes later, Marshall was made aware that Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske and Joe Gibbs Racing would sign, and he knew that a better offer wouldn’t be given to the teams after that.
NASCAR’s defense made Marshall acknowledge that there are no permanent charters in other racing series, and that the teams received $430 million in revenue from NASCAR in 2025, up $90 million from the $340 million handed out in 2024.
The cross-examination ended when the defense revealed a text message that Marshall sent to an unnamed executive of Spire Motorsports on Sept. 13, 2024, one week after the 2025-31 agreement was signed, where he said that the deal “is a win in my book.”
The remaining three quarters of the day saw Snyder on the stand. Snyder, the former dean of the business schools at University of Chicago, University of Virginia and Yale University and who earned a master’s degree in public policy and a Ph.D in economics from the former, marked the first expert witness of the trial. His expertise dealt with industrial organization, which often deals directly with anti-trust cases.
During questioning from the plaintiffs, Snyder cited the track exclusivity agreements, the 12-month idle period for outgoing team owners and the IP protections of the Next Gen car as examples of NASCAR’s anticompetitive conduct, and that they reduced viability of outside competitors from entering the market for premier stock-car racing.
He also used several professional sports leagues (like the NFL, PGA Tour, NHL and Formula 1, to name a few) as examples of series that faced entry or protentional entry (American Football League, LIV Golf, World Hockey Association, etc.) and testified that the entry and potential entry led to better financial terms for the golfers and teams in these instances.
Snyder testified that the signing of NASCAR’s track exclusivity agreements (or renewals of said agreements) took place around three major time periods: October 2015, October 2019 and late 2022 to early 2023, with the common denominator being that these were the same time periods during which NASCAR was in negotiations with the teams with charter agreements, and the exclusivity agreements “strengthen NASCAR’s bargaining power.”
As for why NASCAR would pay racetracks, Snyder stated, “three words: pay for exclusivity.”
With alleged anticompetitive conduct identified, Snyder wanted to identify how the market for premier stock-car racing would operate without NASCAR’s aforementioned conduct. He chose F1 as a benchmark for NASCAR due to its similarities, with the exception that F1, in his own words, doesn’t own venues or have exclusive contracts.
His analysis showed that from 2017 to 2014, F1 teams made an average of 45% of F1’s revenue. In NASCAR’s 2021 to 2024 charter agreements, the teams only earned 25% of the revenue. Because of this, Snyder argued that the new charter agreement from 2025-31, although it provides a greater percentage of revenue for teams, is still below the teams’ market value.
Snyder’s three forms of damage components were the lost profit from reduced revenues, the reduction in teams’ market value and the additional lost revenue of the teams running unchartered for the final 16 races of 2025. The additional lost revenue for 23XI and FRM in 2025 was estimated by Snyder at $10.7 million and $9.4 million, respectively, while the lost profit from reduced revenue was estimated to be a total of $41 million for 23XI and a total of $43 million for FRM between the 2021-24 seasons.
Snyder calculated the reduction in the teams’ market values to be $163.8 million and $96.4 million for 23XI and FRM, respectively, and that the total damage estimates for the teams due to NASCAR’s anticompetitive policies was a whopping $364.7 million.
Addressing the question that NASCAR couldn’t pay this amount, Snyder testified that NASCAR had a great credit rating, had $2.2 billion in assets on Dec. 31, 2024, and that Goldman Sachs estimated its total equity at $5 billion. These, Snyder argued, would attract investors.
Citing those numbers and the PGA Tour’s adaption to LIV, Snyder finished his testimony by stating that it’s NASCAR’s “job to figure out (how to pay), and they have the financial flexibility to do it.”
The NASCAR defense immediately began poking holes in Snyder’s testimony, first with evidence that EchoPark Speedway received the same amount of money from in 2014 (before the exclusivity clauses) from NASCAR as it did in 2016 with them, which, the defense argued, showed that NASCAR was not paying the tracks more for exclusivity.
Snyder testified that through his studies, the threat of competition would lead to NASCAR to pay teams a total of $1.06 billion between 2021-24, and that a potential entry in premier stock-car racing would be “viable” by 2021.
The defense raised that the teams had signed the Goodwill Provision in 2016 (a non-compete agreement) and that for more than the first 50 years of NASCAR’s existence, there was no entry of a competitor, nor a threat of entry in NASCAR.
Snyder then stated that with the 2016 charter agreement sans the non-compete restrictions, NASCAR could face the potential of a new series.
The defense also questioned Snyder’s figures and totals for monetary damage, stating that these figures were estimated through the threat of a potential entry series and not a real one. When the defense asked Snyder what tracks, what racecars and the number of teams needed for a viable series, Snyder wasn’t able to provide much of an answer.
However, Snyder responded that the idea that leagues don’t respond to potential entry is wrong and that NASCAR itself was worried about potential entry through documents and emails in the early 2020s.
The questions asked by the defense made it clear that Snyder had focused his studies on NASCAR from 2016 to the present and that his knowledge of NASCAR from 1948 to 2015 — before charters and exclusivity agreements — was lacking, as was knowledge of NASCAR in general. For example, he didn’t know who Corey Heim or Juan Pablo Montoya were, nor that Kamui Kobayashi had raced in NASCAR with 23XI. When asked by Judge Bell if he understood the revenue purse for open teams, he said he did not.
At the close of day six, the defense told Judge Bell that its cross-examination of Snyder isn’t close to done. The hearings will continue at 8:30 a.m. ET Tuesday morning, with the hope that a handful of witnesses can be sent in and out for questioning.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
Can anybody explain in layman’s terms what this all means? is 23XI a racing sport like Nascar and they just want to use the same tracks as Nascar but Nascar won’t let them because they have some crooked deal with the tracks and they don’t want competition? or is there more to this?
Yeah, there’s more. 23XI is not a “racing sport”, but just a NASCAR team. I’m no attorney, so I can’t say the following is 100% accurate. But this is my current understanding.
For the tracks, much of this has come to light due to the now defunct SRX series. (There is some circumstantial information SRX may eventually return.) NASCAR forced partner tracks to sign non-compete agreements, as they were becoming concerned SRX could rise to be a direct competitor. Additionally, some NASCAR teams had discussed possibly breaking away and starting their own series. Whether these discussions were at all serious is unclear, but the argument is NASCAR’s non-compete agreements with third party tracks is monopolistic behavior.
As for money, and make no mistake it’s always about the money, 23XI and FRM’s position is NASCAR has made competing against them impossible due to controlling most tracks over one mile which lend themselves to stock car racing. Meanwhile, NASCAR gave teams a “take it or leave it” ultimatum via the new charter agreements. Without a charter, a team cannot be competitive, as with the charter comes additional revenue, as well as being guaranteed a spot in each race. Currently, it appears somewhere between 70% and 90% of NASCAR teams are now running at a financial loss, while NASCAR continues to be profitable. Also, the most recent charter agreement removed one of the few tools teams had to veto any NASCAR decisions.
Summing all that up, the teams indicate NASCAR has made creating a competing series impossible, and NASCAR is making money while forcing any team which wishes to be competitive to run either at a small profit, or more commonly, at a financial loss.
NASCAR indicates they are protecting the sport via exclusive agreements at tracks, and the reason teams are losing money is due to spending beyond their means.
Personal opinion, from a common sense standpoint, NASCAR is acting as a monopoly here. They have actively used their power to damage/eliminate competition, and are forcing teams into at best turning a modest profit, while NASCAR itself continues to make tidy sums of money. But that’s just an opinion, and common sense doesn’t mean the law agrees.
Very good summation as I understand it
Well said. When you add in that NASCAR controls the car design and part suppliers they are definitely being monopolistic
It was obvious at least IMO that they made a determined effort to run SRX out of business and they succeeded. I’d like to see it come back it was fun.
I enjoyed SRX as well. Just don’t bring Paul Tracy back.
Agree. Paul Tracy is an interesting character, and definitely plays the “villain” part well. But man, he tore up so much equipment – to the point that, IMO, he ruined several races. When you make Kenny Schrader mad, as in mad enough to show it publicly, you done messed up!
You seem to have a sensible grasp of the situation. Thanks.