Franchises in NASCAR?
One of the hardy perennials in discussions about NASCAR’s future seems to be the question of whether the sport should award franchises to teams, instead of allowing anyone to show up with a qualified car and driver and compete for a spot in each race.
It seems to me that the current rule that guarantees starting spots in each race to the top 35 drivers goes a long way toward creating certainty for teams and sponsors regarding their investments. So what the franchise issue is really about is a transfer of wealth from NASCAR to current team owners by giving team owners perpetual licenses for something they must currently win through competition. The France family would essentially be making equity partners of the people who currently own cars, and whether that would help the sport or not, I don’t see any incentive for the France family to do it.
It is striking that the person calling most vociferously for a franchise in today’s article is Richard Petty, whose Petty Enterprises seems to have fallen on hard times. Kyle Petty has fallen out of the top 35 and shows little evidence of an ability to compete for a starting slot on a weekly basis. So Petty’s call for a franchise seems like a whine for NASCAR to give him something he can no longer earn. Sorry King, but here at the OSG we call ‘em like we see ‘em.