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Team Ownership Stake On Bargaining Table For NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace

This article is more than 3 years old.

Bubba Wallace’s whirlwind 2020 NASCAR season may result in partial ownership of the team for which he drives.

Richard Petty Motorsports team owner Andrew Murstein confirmed to me that the organization had offered an ownership stake to Wallace, whose current contract with RPM expires at the conclusion of this season.

“We’re in discussions with him about an extension that includes ownership in the team,” said Murstein, who expects an agreement to be finalized “within the next couple of weeks.”

Wallace is part of a deep NASCAR free-agent pool in advance of 2021 that also includes 2012 series champion Brad Keselowski and 2019 playoff participants Erik Jones, Kyle Larson and Aric Almirola, among others. Murstein insisted the organization’s priority is to retain Wallace, the lone African-American driver in the top-tier Cup Series and a key catalyst for NASCAR’s decision to ban the Confederate flag and symbols from its venues.

While an ownership stake as a negotiation ante is indeed rare in NASCAR, it’s not without precedent. Hendrick Motorsports signed Jeff Gordon to a lifetime contract prior to 2002 that included partial team ownership. Gene Haas lured two-time champion Tony Stewart from Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008 with a 50% stake in what is now Stewart-Haas Racing. Unlike Gordon and Stewart, Wallace is without championship bona fides, speaking to the importance of his heightened name recognition to RPM, which Forbes ranked as the ninth-most-valuable team organization in NASCAR this year, worth $28 million, a sharp contrast to Hendrick’s $315 million valuation.

“There’s a plethora of drivers. There is only one Bubba,” said Murstein.

Wallace’s increased presence in the public eye over the last two months, which included national TV appearances after he drove a car adorned with “Black Lives Matter” on June 10 at Martinsville Speedway, attracted a new team sponsor in Cash App—a multimillion-dollar partnership across three years, per Murstein—and a personal endorsement deal with Beats by Dre.

“We went from probably having one meeting a week with a potential sponsor to five the last five weeks or so,” said Murstein. “I think Bubba is probably the most recognizable NASCAR driver now, other than Richard Petty. So we’ve got probably the two most recognizable names in the sport. It’s a marketer’s dream.”

The 83-year-old Petty is the company’s eponym and a part-owner, in addition to being the team’s long-running ambassador.

On the racetrack, Wallace is averaging a 19.8-place finish through 19 races and ranks 20th in the standings, but that belies the driver’s positive effort given RPM’s No. 43 car presently ranks as the 25th-fastest car in the series. Wallace’s production value is worth an estimated $1.5 million on the open market, per Motorsports Analytics, representing an increase of over 454% from his preseason valuation.

In addition to a pay raise launching him into the seven-figure salary bracket, Wallace, represented by Prosport Management, seeks improved equipment and resources. Chip Ganassi Racing’s No. 42 car, currently without a driver for 2021, presents a seamless landing spot given existing partnerships with McDonald’s MCD and Coca-Cola KO (both CGR team sponsors that have active business relationships with Wallace) and ties to Prosport; the most recent occupants of the No. 42 car, Larson and Matt Kenseth, are also Prosport clients.

Murstein is confident RPM can create a more competitive atmosphere around the 26-year-old Wallace, the team’s full-time driver since 2018.

“The nice thing about this sport is that you can do better quickly if you spend the money,” said Murstein. “It’s not like other sports where you only have so much talent. Here, the technology on the car is part of the talent.”

A cash infusion and a long-term relationship with Wallace would serve as a welcome relief for RPM. The organization consolidated from two teams to one prior to 2017, hasn’t had a traditional primary sponsor since the departure of Smithfield Foods prior to 2018 and has lacked stability in its crew chief position.

Jerry Baxter, the team’s third crew chief in three years, was personally recruited by Wallace last off-season. Between October 2013 and November 2014, Wallace and Baxter won five NASCAR Truck Series races as a driver-crew chief pairing.

Note: A spokesperson for Prosport Management declined to comment on this report.

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