NASCAR asks court to convene a settlement conference with 23XI, FRM
NASCAR officials have asked the court to order a settlement conference that will assemble representatives from NASCAR and plaintiff teams 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports in an effort to resolve the ongoing lawsuit before their December trial.
In a court filing Monday evening, NASCAR requested “an order directing the parties to participate in a judicial settlement conference to be convened by the Court” with a judicial officer presiding over the case. This is the latest development in an antitrust lawsuit that aged a year old this month.
NASCAR writes that both parties have attempted solving this case through previous mediation attempts — specifically via efforts with a private mediator, former executive vice president and chief legal officer of the NBA, Jeffrey Mishkin — but nothing has yet led to a resolution.
“Despite the lack of a resolution through the mediation or settlement conferences, the parties have all expressed a willingness to resolve this matter prior to a trial on the merits,” Monday’s filing stated.
NASCAR specifically cited what 23XI Racing co-owner and sports icon Michael Jordan told reporters on the steps of the U.S. District Court in Uptown Charlotte after a hearing in September: “We’ve always been open to settlement. Always have been. We’ve never taken that off the table.”
“This is an area where the parties are actually in full agreement,” Monday’s filing continued. “NASCAR would also like to resolve this case prior to trial and believes that the parties should be able to reach a reasonable resolution with the assistance of a neutral judicial officer.”
The filing goes on to say that a “judicial settlement conference” — unlike a mediation or settlement conference — “provides an opportunity for the parties and counsel to engage in settlement discussions with a judicial officer experienced in the legal issues and the issues common to a jury trial in the Western District of North Carolina.”
NASCAR submitted another court filing Friday
This is the second motion NASCAR has submitted in this case in a handful of days.
The first came Friday evening, when NASCAR submitted a motion for summary judgment to the courts that essentially claimed that the teams have no basis for suing NASCAR on the grounds that it is a monopoly. This lawsuit was filed in October 2024, shortly after the two plaintiff NASCAR Cup Series teams — 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports — declined to sign the charter agreement ahead of the 2025 season.
23XI Racing is co-owned by Jordan and Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin. Front Row Motorsports is owned by Bob Jenkins.
Among Friday’s court filings included a vast list of statements from Cup Series team owners and other high-profile NASCAR personnel that indicated that the end of the charter system would endanger the teams’ fiscal health. Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, Joe Gibbs and Roger Penske, among others, all stated something similar: that the lawsuit between NASCAR and plaintiffs 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports must be resolved in a way that keeps the charter system in place.
The charter system guarantees Cup owners spots in the field, portions of each race’s purse, money from the sport’s media rights deal and more. The system, NASCAR claims, has created more than $1.5 billion in equity value for its teams since the system’s invention and implementation in 2016.
“The Charter system has delivered on the teams’ goal of creating long-term equity value, as evidenced by the increasing sales prices of Charters in recent years,” said Hendrick, who is the majority owner of Hendrick Motorsports, the all-time winningest Cup Series team in NASCAR. “I believe the potential loss of Charters (i.e., reverting to the system that was in place prior to 2016, as opposed to improving upon the current Charter system) represents an existential threat to Hendrick Motorsports and other Cup Series race teams.
“It would jeopardize our business and risk the jobs of thousands of people who rely on our industry.”
In a statement Friday, lead attorney for 23XI and FRM Jeffrey Kessler wrote that “the declarations submitted by the various teams are supportive of my clients’ position,” and that “my clients are not, and never have been, seeking to eliminate the charter system.”
“Many teams have expressed a desire to resolve this matter, a goal my clients share, but NASCAR has yet to demonstrate a similar willingness to engage in a meaningful resolution,” Kessler’s statement continued.
He concluded Friday: “NASCAR’s new motion changes nothing, and we look forward to presenting our case at trial December 1.”
This story was originally published October 7, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "NASCAR asks court to convene a settlement conference with 23XI, FRM."
