Michael Jordan delivers passionate speech as NASCAR legal battle turns ugly

23XI Racing co-owner and NBA legend Michael Jordan delivered a passionate speech outside the court on Thursday as his team's legal battle against NASCAR turned ugly.

23XI, along with Front Row Motorsports (FRM), sued NASCAR last October, alleging anti-competitive and monopolistic practices from the stock car racing series after refusing to sign up to the new Cup Series charter agreement.

Since then, the two sides have gone back and forth on several key issues in court, with proceedings having made it clear there are strong feelings of dislike on both sides towards the other party.

However, as the case returned to the courtroom on Thursday, with 23XI and FRM seeking a fresh injunction that would see their chartered status return and NASCAR prevented from selling their charters until the lawsuit had concluded, things took an even uglier turn.

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Secret messages revealed

As part of the hearing, private messages between parties on both sides of the argument were read out in court, some of which showed the disdain that they have for one another, and indeed others.

One message sent from 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin, for example, read that he despised the France family - Jim France is the current CEO and Chairman of NASCAR.

"In short, I'm in for the fight with NASCAR. My despise of the France family runs deep, but whatever we do, please let's not sabotage our own business over principle when it comes down to it. Love you all and thank you for allowing me to be a part of it," Hamlin's message read.

Elsewhere in another message, 23XI president Steve Lauletta wrote to Hamlin when discussing future investment: "I wish I knew what to do and what is the best investment path. Being in for the long haul and Jim dying is probably the answer."

Messages from Michael Jordan himself even came to light. In one message, Jordan slammed Joe Gibbs Racing as 'f***ers' after hearing they had signed up to the charter agreement, and in a separate message, stated that teams that did not support 23XI in their battle against NASCAR would regret it.

"I think people understand our fight," Jordan wrote. "Good things will come from this. Teams are going to regret not supporting us. P***ies!!!!!!!”

It wasn't only messages from the 23XI side that were made public. There was also a text chain which showed NASCAR president Steve O'Donnell issuing a damning verdict on one draft of the charter agreement, claiming it would take NASCAR back to a '1996, f*** the teams, dictatorship, motorsport, redneck, southern, tiny sport.'

It must be emphasized here that this was not a boast and that O'Donnell was arguing that the agreement needed to be better for both the teams and the sport.

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Michael Jordan speaks out

Speaking outside of the courtroom on Thursday after the fiery hearing, Jordan himself delivered a passionate speech in which he vowed to fight this case until the end for the good of the sport.

"I've been a fan of the game for a long period of time,” Jordan said outside the court.

“When we first started this whole process, I've always said that I want to fight for the betterment of the sport. "Even though they (NASCAR) try to point out that we made some money and we had a successful business, that's not the point.

“The point is that the sport itself needs to continually change for the fans, as well as for the teams, as well as for NASCAR, too, if they understand that.

“I feel like we made a good statement today about that, and look, I look forward to going down firing.

“If I have to fight this to the end for the betterment of the sport, I will do that.”

Judge Kenneth Bell is set to rule on the injunction next week, and it will certainly be a pivotal ruling either way.

NASCAR has made it clear it has several parties interested in the 23XI and FRM charters and wants to sell them ahead of 2026, whilst the teams have stated that they will go out of business if that happens, and they were to go on and win the lawsuit as they cannot run as open teams beyond the end of 2025.

The wider lawsuit itself is set to hit court on December 1.

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