sports
Who Owns NASCAR?
In brief
Who owns NASCAR?
The France family. Not a board of team owners, not a members' association, not shareholders. NASCAR is a private company held through a holding vehicle that a 2019 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission describes as wholly owned by James C. France, Lesa France Kennedy and members of their families and related entities and trusts. There is no stock, no annual report and no obligation to publish anything.
The unusual part is not that it is private. It is that the same family owns three things at once: the body that writes the rules, most of the biggest tracks the races are held at, and the supply of charters teams must hold to compete. That is what two teams sued over in 2024, and what settled mid-trial in December 2025.
NASCAR is a sanctioning body, not a league
The comparison people reach for is the NFL, and it is the wrong one. The NFL is a joint venture of the thirty-two clubs that own it. NASCAR is nothing of the sort: it is a private company that sanctions races, sets the rules, certifies the cars, sells the television rights and decides who is allowed to enter. The teams are its counterparties, not its members.
The 2024 antitrust complaint makes the structure unusually legible, because it had to name the entities. The caption of the case in the Western District of North Carolina lists four defendants: the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (the sanctioning body itself), NASCAR Holdings, LLC (the parent), NASCAR Event Management, LLC (the entity that promotes races) and James France personally. courthousenews.com
Three companies and one man.
Figure
Three separate businesses, one family
1 · The rulebook
The sanctioning body
National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC writes the competition rules, approves the cars, licenses the drivers and sells the media rights to the series. Its decisions are not subject to a vote of the teams.
2 · The venues
The racetracks
Since October 2019 the tracks that were held by the listed International Speedway Corporation - Daytona, Talladega, Darlington, Martinsville and others - sit inside the same private group as the sanctioning body.
3 · The entry ticket
The charter supply
Charters guarantee a team a place in every Cup Series race and a share of the revenue. NASCAR created them in 2016, decides how many exist, and sets the terms on which they are renewed.
4 · The owner
The family holding
All three sit under a privately held parent whose equity is held by France family members, entities and trusts. No filing obliges that parent to disclose the split between them.
In most professional sports these three functions sit with three different parties. In stock car racing they sit with one.
What the December 2025 trial forced into the open
Because NASCAR files nothing, almost everything the public knows about its economics comes from a courtroom. In December 2025, two Cup Series teams - 23XI Racing, legally 2311 Racing LLC, and Front Row Motorsports - took the sanctioning body to trial. Over nine days, evidence went in that had never been public.
| Disclosed at trial | Figure | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Trust split | Jim France Family Trust 54.7 per cent; Lesa France Kennedy Family Trust 45.3 per cent | Reported from testimony, not from a filing |
| Individual stakes | Jim France 54 per cent; Lesa France Kennedy 36 per cent | Reported from the same testimony; does not reconcile with the trust figures |
| Distributions to the family trust | Approx. $400m, 2021 to 2024 | Evidence introduced at trial |
| Valuation put to the chairman | $5bn | A figure used in court, not an audited or transaction value |
| Jim France compensation | Approx. $3.5m per year | His own estimate on the stand |
Two respectable outlets reported the ownership split two different ways from the same week of testimony. Fox Sports described two trusts holding 54.7 and 45.3 per cent foxsports.com; the Associated Press wire version reported Jim France at 54 per cent and Lesa France Kennedy at 36 espn.com. The distribution, valuation and salary figures come from the same reporting nbcsports.com. We report both versions rather than pick one, because there is no document that settles it.
Nobody outside the family and its advisers can verify the precise split, because no filing requires it to exist in public. What is documented is the shape: two branches of one family, with Jim France's side holding the majority.
The most detailed public account of who owns NASCAR is a set of press reports about what witnesses said under oath, and two of them disagree.
The 2019 deal that closed the circle
Until 2019 there was a partial check on all this, by accident of history. The tracks were held by International Speedway Corporation, separately listed on NASDAQ, with public shareholders, independent directors and a legal obligation to file. Anyone could read its accounts.
The France family controlled ISC anyway, through a dual-class structure. Class A shares carried one-fifth of a vote each; Class B shares carried a full vote. The family held the Class B. When NASCAR moved to buy the company, the merger filing put the position plainly: the France Family Group held stock "representing over 74.7 percent of the combined voting power of ISC's outstanding stock", and the acquirer, NASCAR Holdings, Inc., was "wholly owned by certain members of the France Family Group". sec.gov
The proxy statement is blunter still about the leverage involved. ISC's special committee of independent directors, it records, "took into account that the France Family Group had an effective veto over any alternative extraordinary transaction". There was no competing bidder because there could not be one. sec.gov
Who rolled over
Jim France and Lesa France Kennedy: the proxy defines the "Rollover Shareholders" as the France Family Group other than Brian Z. France and his children and related entities. They contributed their ISC shares into the private parent instead of taking cash. As of 31 May 2019 they held 231,925 Class A and 16,925,864 Class B shares, or 69.58 per cent of the voting power.
Who cashed out
Brian France: NASCAR's former chairman, who stepped aside in 2018, was expressly excluded from the rollover. His branch took the $45.00 per share in cash like any other shareholder. The 2019 transaction was therefore also a family reorganisation, resolving one branch out of the ownership.
The merger closed on 18 October 2019 after shareholders - including a majority of the voting power not held by the controlling shareholders - approved it two days earlier. ISC became a wholly owned subsidiary of NASCAR, trading in its Class A stock was suspended on NASDAQ the same day, and the company said it intended to deregister and stop reporting to the SEC. Thirteen major motorsports facilities went private with it, Daytona International Speedway among them. sec.gov
One month earlier, almost the same thing had happened to the other side of the industry. Sonic Financial Corporation, the private vehicle of the Bruton Smith family, completed a tender offer at $19.75 a share for Speedway Motorsports, taking Atlanta, Bristol, Charlotte, Las Vegas, New Hampshire, Sonoma and Texas off the New York Stock Exchange. sec.gov It later added Dover and Nashville, completing that purchase on 22 December 2021. speedwaymotorsports.com
In five weeks in the autumn of 2019, American stock car racing went from a sport whose two largest track operators filed quarterly accounts to one in which neither did. That is the most consequential fact about NASCAR ownership, and it has nothing to do with who sits in which chair.
Charters: the asset the teams actually sued over
A charter is a contractual entitlement, created by NASCAR in 2016, that guarantees a team a starting position in every Cup Series points race and a defined share of the sport's revenue. There are thirty-six of them. They can be bought and sold between teams, which makes them the closest thing the sport has to a franchise, and the most valuable asset most teams own. foxsports.com
The critical difference from an NFL or NBA franchise is duration. Charters were not permanent. They ran for a fixed term tied to the media rights cycle, and NASCAR alone decided the terms of renewal. The current agreement runs from 2025 to 2031, alongside a seven-year domestic media package reported at $7.7bn across Fox, NBC, Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon. blackbookmotorsport.com Chartered teams received about $431m in distributions in 2025, roughly $12m to $13m per charter.
When NASCAR presented the 2025 agreement in September 2024, thirteen of fifteen organisations signed. Two refused: 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports. They sued instead, in October 2024, alleging monopolisation of premier stock car racing in the United States.
What the settlement did and did not change
The trial ran into its ninth day before U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell. On 11 December 2025 the parties settled. NASCAR agreed to make charters permanent for all Cup Series teams - the "evergreen" status the teams had asked for and been refused. The financial terms were not disclosed. nbcsports.com
The effect on asset values was immediate. The last charter sold before the settlement went for a reported $45m; with permanence attached, the figure attributed to a charter roughly doubled. foxsports.com Additional terms have been reported - a larger transfer cut for NASCAR on charter sales, a wider team veto over costly proposals, a share of international media revenue - but the settlement itself is confidential, and those details should be treated as reported rather than confirmed.
What did not change is ownership. NASCAR is still privately held by the France family. It still owns the tracks. It still writes the rules. The settlement converted the charter from a lease into something closer to freehold, which is a real transfer of value to the teams, but it did not touch the structure that produced the dispute.
The teams did not win a share of the sport. They won a permanent tenancy in it.
What remains undisclosed
Anyone researching this should know where the public record stops. NASCAR Holdings publishes no accounts. There is no register listing the beneficiaries of either family trust. Revenue, profit and debt are not public, and the $5bn figure that circulated during the trial is a valuation used in argument, not a price anyone paid. The France family's private holdings beyond the racing group - including the sports car sanctioning body IMSA and the ARCA series, which NASCAR acquired in 2018 nascar.com - are similarly outside any reporting obligation.
That is not evasion; a private American company is entitled to be private. But it means the answer here is documented in only two places: a handful of 2019 SEC filings made while ISC was still listed, and the transcript of one trial. Everything else is inference.
Frequently asked questions
Is NASCAR publicly traded?
No. There has never been NASCAR stock. International Speedway Corporation, which held the tracks, was listed on NASDAQ until October 2019, when NASCAR bought it and it deregistered. Speedway Motorsports left the New York Stock Exchange a month before that. No listed pure-play in American stock car racing remains.
Who owns the NASCAR team with Michael Jordan?
That is 23XI Racing, co-owned by Michael Jordan, driver Denny Hamlin and Jordan's long-time business manager Curtis Polk. Its legal entity is 2311 Racing LLC, which is how it appears in court filings. Owning a team is entirely separate from owning NASCAR: 23XI is a customer of the sanctioning body, and was the lead plaintiff against it.
Does the France family own every NASCAR track?
No. It owns the largest group, inherited from International Speedway Corporation and including Daytona and Talladega. A comparably sized group - Charlotte, Bristol, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Sonoma, Texas, Dover and Nashville among them - belongs to Speedway Motorsports, controlled by the Smith family through Sonic Financial. A few venues are independent or publicly owned.
Does Brian France still own part of NASCAR?
The 2019 proxy statement excludes Brian Z. France, his children and related entities from the shareholders who rolled their ISC stock into the private parent, and the parent is described as owned by Jim France, Lesa France Kennedy and their families. On the documentary record, his branch was cashed out rather than carried forward.
How much is NASCAR worth?
There is no reliable answer. A $5bn figure was put to Jim France during the 2025 trial, but no shares trade, no control transaction has set a price, and no accounts are published. Any headline valuation is an estimate built on the media rights deal rather than a market fact.
Who runs NASCAR day to day?
Jim France is chairman and chief executive. Lesa France Kennedy, his niece, is executive vice chair and has focused on the track business. Her son, Ben Kennedy, holds a senior commercial and scheduling role and is widely described as the next generation. Ownership and management sit in the same hands, which is the point.
Key takeaways
The bottom line
- NASCAR is a privately held sanctioning body, not a league owned by its teams. A 2019 SEC filing describes its parent as wholly owned by members of the France family and their trusts.
- The exact split between the two family branches is not in any filing. Trial reporting gave two different versions - 54.7/45.3 between two trusts, or 54 and 36 per cent individually - and neither can be checked against a document.
- The 2019 purchase of International Speedway Corporation put the tracks, the rulebook and the race promotion business inside one private group and ended the last public reporting on any of it.
- Charters, created in 2016, are the entry ticket to Cup racing. NASCAR created them, controls how many exist, and until December 2025 controlled whether they were renewed.
- The 23XI and Front Row settlement made charters permanent and roughly doubled what one is worth. It changed the teams' security of tenure, not who owns the sport.
Final word
Most ownership questions are answered by a share register. This one is answered by a courtroom, because the family that founded stock car racing in 1948 has spent the intervening decades removing every obligation to explain itself - and the last of those obligations went in October 2019, when the tracks stopped filing. What the 2025 trial produced was not a change of ownership but a rare hour of daylight on it.