Former NASCAR champion Greg Biffle critiques 23XI's charter stance - "It's a vicious circle; I don't blame them"

Greg Biffle, the 2002 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion, recently expressed his understanding of why some teams, like 23XI Racing, might be reluctant to sign the new contracts.

23XI Racing, owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan, recently missed the deadline to sign the new charter deal. The team said in a statement that they did not get a fair chance to negotiate the terms and expressed their openness to continuing the discussions.

In a recent YouTube video, Biffle addressed the ongoing disputes over NASCAR’s charter deals and explained that the main issue is regarding how the money is shared.

“Everybody wants a piece of the pie... it's about the money and where's the money going” Biffle said (00:32).

The 54-year-old believes that teams like 23XI Racing are holding out because they want a bigger share of the revenue and increased support from NASCAR.

"NASCAR is not a sport without the teams and the driver and the sponsors that make up the things. So, it’s a vicious circle everybody needs everybody in order to make this deal work and some teams have decided not to sign the charter deal and you know that they have their own reasons and in a way I don’t blame them," he added (03:33).

Biffle further compared the salaries of NASCAR drivers to those of athletes in other sports, suggesting that NASCAR drivers are often paid less.

---

"We were just put under a kind of a crazy timeline" - Denny Hamlin on 23XI Racing's charter deal

23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports, owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin and Bob Jenkins, respectively, have not yet signed the new charter agreement. 23XI Racing is currently involved in a disagreement over the terms of this deal, which has been accepted by many other teams.

"23XI decided to not meet a NASCAR-imposed deadline last night to sign Charter agreements for its two cars for 2025-2031. 23XI’s position, as stated in a letter to NASCAR, is that we did not have an opportunity to fairly bargain for a new Charter contract...We are interested in engaging in constructive discussions with NASCAR to address these issues and move forward in a way that comes to a fair resolution, while strengthening the sport we all love," the statement read.

In his podcast, "Actions Detrimental," Hamlin talked about why 23XI Racing is unhappy with the charter negotiations.

"I think the statement that 23XI put out kind of accurately summed it all up...But yeah, it’s certainly an unfortunate situation, you know. We were just put under a kind of a crazy timeline there, and just thought that, you know, it was not appropriate, and decided to kind of stand up and say, This is not right," he said.

23XI Racing currently fields full-time entries in the NASCAR Cup Series, with Bubba Wallace driving the No. 23 Toyota and Tyler Reddick piloting the No. 45 Toyota.