When 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports filed for a second injunction, NASCAR responded with documents claiming that it allocates a larger share of its operating income to teams than Formula One. The sanctioning body noted a 28% increase in team payments in 2016 and an even steeper 62% increase under the new charter cycle, which runs from 2025 to 2031.
However, as the legal standoff races toward the December 1 trial, new reporting suggests that those figures paint an incomplete picture, and NASCAR’s claimed generosity may be far more misleading than anyone realized.
New Data Exposes the Compensation Disparity Between NASCAR and F1
As the NASCAR vs. 23XI/FRM saga barrels toward a highly anticipated December trial, fresh revelations continue to shake the industry to its core. In the wake of leaked texts and emails involving high-ranking officials, the sport now finds itself confronting an even more unsettling truth: the glaring financial gulf between Formula One and America’s stock-car giant.
And what’s emerging is far more troubling than any courtroom drama. Despite the organization’s previous claims about its compensation structure, new figures suggest a very different reality. Recently, veteran racing journalist Jerry Jordan peeled back the layers on both series’ remuneration models, and the contrast is nothing short of staggering.
According to Exhibit 21 shared on social media: Team Compensation vs. League Revenue, the financial gap between NASCAR and F1 is striking. From 2016 to 2024, the stock car series’ net payments to Cup Series teams rose from $1,176 million to $1,701.1 million, yet those payments consistently represented only 19-21% of the sanctioning body’s total annual revenue.
In contrast, F1’s prize fund ranged from 37% to over 62% of its total revenue between 2017 and 2024. In fact, in some years, more than double the stock car giant’s payout percentage.
While NASCAR’s annual team compensation climbed modestly over the years, F1’s revenue and corresponding distributions surged far more aggressively, underscoring a dramatically different approach to how each series supports its teams. These figures, drawn from Liberty Media’s Brian J. Wendling’s declaration, provide one of the clearest quantitative comparisons yet and highlight why the current dispute over NASCAR’s compensation model has become so explosive.
In its submissions earlier this year in connection with the team’s second injunction, Charlotte points to past increases in team payments and maintains that its revenue-sharing framework compares favorably to that of Formula One.
But when placed alongside the data now emerging in the public domain, those assurances carry far less weight. The numbers reveal a system that returns barely a fifth of its revenue to teams, while F1 routinely distributes nearly half and, in some years, far more.
As the sport edges closer to its high-stakes December showdown, the contrast could not be more evident. What began as a contractual dispute has evolved into a broader examination of how the sanctioning body values the very competitors who power its product.
And with each new filing, each leaked message, and each fresh data point, the gap between NASCAR’s public claims and the financial reality facing its teams becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.