This morning, a jury was selected for the NASCAR antitrust trial. Now, opening statements can begin this afternoon in Charlotte. 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports are taking NASCAR to court for what they allege are violations of antitrust law.

It appears that we didn’t have to wait long for this trial to get started. With a jury selected, the opening statements will be made. Opening statements can be rather lengthy, and there is a lot of room for leeway, usually, for what can be said there versus what can be said later in the trial. But there will still be limits on what each side can present and say in those statements.

Jeffrey Kessler is representing 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports. On the other side of the courtroom are Christopher Yates and NASCAR, as well as Jim France himself. It is the NASCAR trial of all NASCAR trials.

Michael Jordan will be the representative for 23XI in the courtroom as the trial progresses. Curtis Polk and Denny Hamlin have been sequestered from the courtroom since they will act as witnesses in the trial. It gives them less chance to curate their answers based on other witnesses.

Judge Kenneth Bell is overseeing this trial. He has remained a steady hand throughout the lawsuit proceedings. At times, he has warned both sides against going to trial, encouraging a settlement. However, at this point, that has yet to happen.

NASCAR trial – Teams scored big before court date

In a big pre-trial win for the teams, Judge Bell defined the market in question. Due to the NASCAR countersuit against the teams and Polk, Bell adopted their definition of the market, which was very similar to what 23XI and Front Row were arguing in the original suit. So, the market being discussed in this trial is “premier stock car racing.” Not motorsports, not auto racing, not North American motorsports, premier stock car racing.

The NASCAR trial will be argued around that already agreed-upon ruling. Judge Bell has already made it more or less a fact of the case that NASCAR has a monopoly in the market of premier stock car racing. Now, the question at hand is, have they violated antitrust law in order to preserve and maintain that monopoly power?

For 23XI and Front Row, the goal is to have more power as stakeholders in the sport. They want to have permanent charters, more revenue and investment from NASCAR into the teams, and to have more of a say in how the sport operates and changes. In the lawsuit, they have pointed out a number of things that they claim violate antitrust law. That ranges from owning a majority of the racetracks to buying up ARCA to the Next Gen car, intellectual property of the car, the single-source suppliers, and more.

Ultimately, a jury will decide in this case. However, the NASCAR trial can always be appealed to the 4th Circuit and, potentially the Supreme Court, if SCOTUS believes it is a case worth taking. How it all shakes out, we don’t know yet. Over the next 10 business days, we will.