Michael Jordan on the 23XI Racing pit box at Pocono Raceway in June 2021, the team's first Cup season. Photo: Zach Catanzareti Photo via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Steve O’Donnell had a 25-minute slot on a sports-media summit stage in Manhattan on Tuesday, billed under a title nobody outside the France family had held in NASCAR’s 78 years: CEO. Ten months ago he was on the witness stand in a Charlotte federal courtroom, testifying in the antitrust case brought by Michael Jordan’s team. Today Jordan’s team owns the Daytona 500 trophy, both of its cars are in the Chase, and the three executives at the top of NASCAR’s side of that fight have all changed jobs or titles.
That is the real story of NASCAR’s year. The antitrust case did not end with a winner and a loser. It ended with a reshuffled front office, a new kind of charter, and the plaintiff’s team becoming the best advertisement the sport had in 2026.
The lawsuit cost 23XI nothing on the scoreboard
NASCAR, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports settled on December 11, 2025, on the ninth day of trial. Jordan’s line in the joint statement was that he was looking forward to watching the teams “compete hard in 2026.” Nine weeks later, that sounded less like a nicety and more like a forecast.
Tyler Reddick won the Daytona 500 on February 15, and Jordan was in victory lane with him. That was the same Sunday the NBA held its All-Star Game at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. Someone who built his life around basketball chose a stock-car race on basketball’s biggest exhibition day, which tells you more about where his attention is than any quote could.
Then Reddick kept going. He won the first three races of the season, something no Cup driver had done before, and he led the points from Daytona into the summer. Bubba Wallace ran in the top three in points for five of the first six races. The team spent more than a year in litigation, and it still produced its best start ever.
The autumn has been less tidy. After Charlotte, NASCAR’s own Chase standings show Reddick seventh, 114 points behind Kyle Larson. Wallace is 11th and 185 back after Alex Bowman’s spin collected him on Sunday. Both cars are in the Chase, but a title from here would take a stretch of finishes that look a lot like February.
What “evergreen” actually buys a team owner
The trophy gets the attention. The bigger result of the lawsuit for the garage is in the paperwork. As part of the settlement, NASCAR agreed to send every charter holder an amendment that includes “a form of ‘evergreen’ charters,” subject to mutual agreement. The financial terms are confidential.
Here’s why that wording matters. Under the 2025–2031 agreement 23XI and Front Row went to court over, a charter is a guaranteed starting spot and a fixed share of the money, but only until the term runs out. When renewal time comes, NASCAR holds the leverage, because the alternative for a team is to race as an open entry. An evergreen charter turns that lease into something closer to property. Teams can show it to lenders, put a value on it for investors, and plan around it when a founder wants out.
You can already see the ownership market getting more serious. Brad Keselowski’s three-way exit from RFK Racing is the kind of deal that depends on how long a charter lasts and what it’s worth. The caveat is the phrase “subject to mutual agreement.” Until the amendment terms are public, nobody outside the signatories can say exactly how permanent “evergreen” really is.
No commissioner, and no France in the CEO chair
The org chart changed even faster than the charter. NASCAR named Steve Phelps its first commissioner on March 31, 2025. On January 6, 2026, less than four weeks after the settlement, NASCAR announced he would step away by the end of the month. The company also said it had no immediate plans to fill the commissioner role and would hand those duties to the president and the executive team.
That president was O’Donnell. At Talladega on April 25, NASCAR made him chief executive, the first from outside the France family. Ben Kennedy, 34, became chief operating officer. Jim France, 81, gave up the CEO title he had held since 2018 and stayed on as chairman. O’Donnell said he would spend his first 90 days listening to stakeholders before laying out a plan.
Think about what that means for the garage. O’Donnell spent more than 30 years in NASCAR’s marketing and then its competition department. He knows how the rulebook gets written and who complains about it. The family still owns the company, but the person running it every day came up through the side of the business teams deal with most. Without a commissioner layer, there’s one less office between a team owner’s complaint and the person who can act on it. The awkward part is that the next time team owners sit down to negotiate, the executive across the table will be the same one who testified against their case.
Hollywood is coming back, and it needs real cars
Late in August, Tom Cruise announced a Days of Thunder sequel from Paramount, with Anne Hathaway cast and a June 2028 release planned. The 1990 original arrived just ahead of the sport’s 1990s boom, and anyone who has watched a cheap racing movie knows you can’t fake authenticity on a superspeedway. You need sanctioned cars, real tracks and a series that wants to be involved. A peaceful NASCAR can offer that. A NASCAR still fighting its own teams in court would have been a lot harder to film around.
There’s also a storyline here that no screenwriter needs to invent: a basketball icon sues the sport, settles, and then wins its biggest race two months later. For NASCAR’s marketing department, a team owner people outside racing actually recognize, showing up at races, is worth more than any celebrity grand marshal.
What to watch from here
- Phoenix this Sunday. Four races are left: Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead-Miami. Reddick is 114 points back and needs a big result on a flat mile. The Freeway Insurance 500 preview breaks down the field.
- The co-owner in a Gibbs car. Denny Hamlin, who co-owns 23XI with Jordan, is second in the standings, 49 points behind Larson, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing. The 23XI owner with the best shot at a Cup title this year is the one wearing another team’s firesuit. Our look at what keeps Hamlin racing at 45 covers the rest.
- 23XI’s 2027 lineup. Corey Heim is set to take over the No. 35 full time next season, replacing Riley Herbst. Heim already brings plenty of attention, as his Martinsville penalty saga showed.
- The charter fine print. If the amendment terms ever become public, or if a charter sale puts a price on evergreen status, that will be the clearest sign of who really won in December.
NASCAR spent 2025 trying to beat Michael Jordan in court. It spent 2026 learning that having him as an owner is worth a lot more to the sport.
About the Author
