NASCAR has more Black owners in the Daytona 500 today than ever before
When 40 cars roll off the grid Sunday for the Daytona 500, not only will the moment officially usher in the Next Gen era, it will also symbolize a major leap in the diversity of NASCAR team ownership, largely due to a recent trend of celebrity owners buying into the sport.
Four Black owners who are actively involved with their teams will field cars running in this year’s season-opening superspeedway race, considered the series’ biggest event. It’s the most Black owners to ever be represented in the Daytona 500.
Cars backed by Black celebrity owners Michael Jordan (23XI Racing) and Brad Daugherty (JTG Daugherty) were guaranteed entry thanks to their Cup charters, while teams owned by Black boxing legend Floyd Mayweather (The Money Team Racing) and Black entrepreneur John Cohen (NY Racing) qualified into the 500 as open entrants.
That representation comes at a time when conversations around the lack of diverse team ownership grips the sports world, set off by a recent discrimination lawsuit filed against the NFL by former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores.
“Ownership is really the key to any type of change that you really want to create,” said Emmitt Smith, the Pro Football Hall of Famer who’s launching a full-time NASCAR team with Black driver Jesse Iwuji this year. “If you don’t own it, you can’t really change it.”
Iwuji’s car is racing in NASCAR’s lower-level Xfinity Series, so he won’t be in the Daytona 500 field, but Smith and Iwuji said that part of their team’s goal is to elevate minorities in NASCAR, particularly in STEM fields. That goal is similar to initiatives outlined by Trackhouse Racing, a team co-owned by international music icon Pitbull, the only Hispanic team owner in the top series.
In addition Jordan, Daughtery, Mayweather and Cohen, Black sports celebrities LeBron James and Maverick Carter hold an ownership stake in Fenway Sports Group, which owns a portion of RFK Racing, although neither James nor Carter have been promotional about their team involvement.
Including James and Carter, however, as well as Pitbull, there will be seven racially and ethnically diverse individuals with a vested interest in a NASCAR team running in the Daytona 500, which is a major shift in the industry’s ownership complexion that just two years ago was almost entirely white.
“It’s significant,” said Daugherty, a former NBA player who’s been involved with his JTG Daugherty Racing team for more than a decade. “I’m proud to be a part of this small group that I hope continues to grow and become larger as we go forward, not only with African Americans, but with women. I would love to see more women have opportunities to be owners and be part of this collective effort to climb into the 21st century.”
While there are few, women NASCAR team owners will also have representation on Sunday by way of family-owned teams. Wood Brothers Racing lists Kim Wood and Jordan Hicks as co-owners of the family-run shop. Beard Motorsports, owned by Linda Beard, wife of late team founder Mark Beard Sr., qualified a car driven by Noah Gragson for this year’s main race.
Like Daugherty, Cohen has long been involved with NASCAR, starting his team in 2009. He has witnessed the sport’s slow evolution, but noted the changes that have more recently swept the industry in terms of its desire to appeal to a younger, more diverse audience.
Although charter prices in NASCAR have skyrocketed, Cohen said that he’s hopeful that brands that have typically not connected with NASCAR in the past will engage with the sport going forward. Teams are heavily reliant on corporate relationships in order to field their cars weekly.
“Brands, when they look at NASCAR, they look at one demographic that fits their scope of what they’re trying to market at the time,” Cohen said. “Now, different owners are coming in. It’s not just Michael Jordan. It’s just a whole foray of owners, period. It’s a different scope of where NASCAR’s going, for me, looking forward.”
Cohen, for example, cited NASCAR’s radical Clash exhibition race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as an example of a forward-thinking move that can attract new fans in urban areas. He said that he’s pushing for NASCAR to race in New York next.
“The Clash was a sexy event,” Cohen said. “It just looked like we were somewhere else besides a NASCAR race, and for me, if we can go more places like that…If I can convince everybody in NASCAR we can race there in Brooklyn, I want to do it. Summertime. Maybe that’s the All-Star race.”
While a New York race seems less likely in the short term compared to other venues NASCAR is eyeing, the change in the sport’s direction and in its ownership representation is apparent.
“I always try to bring the crazy ideas,” Cohen said. “But after they see the success of LA, I don’t think anything is a crazy idea anymore.”
A more diverse ownership group in NASCAR isn’t crazy to imagine, either. It’s reality.
This story was originally published February 20, 2022 at 6:45 AM.
