Who Owns NASCAR?

Bill France Sr., a Daytona Beach mechanic and promoter, founded NASCAR in February 1948 at the Streamline Hotel, organizing the scattered world of Southern stock car racing into a sanctioned championship. The first Strictly Stock race ran in 1949 on Daytona Beach's sand-and-road course; the series became the Grand National and eventually the Cup Series.

France built Daytona International Speedway in 1959, creating the sport's cathedral and its signature race, the Daytona 500. His son Bill France Jr. took over in 1972 and drove the modern era: national television contracts, Winston Cup sponsorship, and the sport's transformation from a regional Southern pastime into a national series with millions of fans and corporate backing.

The 1990s and early 2000s were NASCAR's commercial peak, with sellout crowds and the second-highest TV ratings in American sport. The 2001 death of Dale Earnhardt forced a safety revolution that produced the HANS device mandate and the Car of Tomorrow. Under third-generation chairman Brian France and later Jim France, the series introduced the playoff format, the charter franchise system in 2016, stage racing, and the Next Gen car in 2022.

The modern business reset came in December 2023 with a seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal running from 2025 through 2031, splitting the Cup Series across Fox, NBC, Amazon Prime Video, and TNT, and putting Xfinity on The CW. The period also produced the sport's defining legal fight: the 2024 antitrust suit by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports, settled mid-trial in December 2025 with an agreement delivering a form of permanent "evergreen" charters, dismissed with prejudice in February 2026.