Insider Reveals Potential Cost of NASCAR Charter in Cup Series

RFK Racing faces the possibility next season of needing to run one of its three The Chase contenders in an unchartered car. If the team wants to change that, it could come at a staggering cost.

The Athletic‘s motorsports reporter Jordan Bianchi wrote this week that the low-end estimate to acquire a permanent charter in the Cup Series is “approaching $100 million,” and it could be even higher.

Related: Specific RFK Racing Driver Could Lose Chartered Status in 2027

RFK is currently leasing a charter from Rick Ware Racing for the 2026 season. However, that charter was sold to Legacy Motor Club to complete the team’s expansion to three full-time drivers in 2027.

A $100-plus million charter is the type of price tag that teams with deep pockets—Spire Motorsports, 23XI Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske—could likely afford. That’s not necessarily the case with RFK’s financial situation.

It puts RFK in a similar situation to what team owners in the National Football League are increasingly facing. While it’s to a more extreme degree—with NFL franchise values now eclipsing $7 billion—NASCAR teams will likely need to target partnerships with private equity groups to afford rising costs.

Related: Young Driver Named Favorite for New Charter at Legacy

To that point, John Ourand of Puck reported in January that private equity groups and media corporations had “informal talks” about the potential process of taking a minority ownership stake in NASCAR. Likewise, there is similar interest in teams, with Spire’s pockets an example of how financial backing from private equity can help fund operations.

So, if RFK wants to obtain a charter to ensure that Ryan Preece, Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher are all eligible for every race and can receive the full slotted purse for their finishes, they’ll need to find the money to acquire another charter.