Culture
Michael Jordan confident in outcome of lawsuit against NASCAR: ‘We want a fair deal’
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Michael Jordan expressed confidence Sunday in the outcome of the antitrust lawsuit his 23XI Racing team recently filed against NASCAR in federal court, telling The Athletic, “I wouldn’t have filed it if I didn’t think I could win.”
Jordan made his comments before Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway, sitting atop the pit box for 23XI driver Bubba Wallace. The team jointly filed its lawsuit with another NASCAR organization, Front Row Motorsports, alleging NASCAR operates as a monopoly and uses “anticompetitive and exclusionary practices” to “enrich themselves at the expense of the premier stock car racing teams.”
The issue between the parties centers around NASCAR’s so-called “charter system” and a final “take-it-or-leave-it” offer NASCAR offered teams last month to extend the deal. Thirteen of 15 team owners signed the deal, with 23XI and Front Row as the holdouts.
“We want a fair deal, but this wasn’t fair. I didn’t just file it for me. It’s for everyone,” Jordan said as he extended both arms and gestured toward the cars stationed on the grid.
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NASCAR, meanwhile, continued to decline comment. The sanctioning body has not reacted or responded publicly since the lawsuit was filed, nor did NASCAR comment when 23XI and Front Row refused to sign the charter agreement in September.
NASCAR chairman and CEO Jim France, who is named as a defendant in the suit, thanked reporters for the opportunity to comment but said he had nothing to say about the lawsuit when approached Sunday in the garage area.
“Excited about our championship battles and looking forward to a fantastic race today,” France said.
Court records indicate 23XI and Front Row will file for a preliminary injunction in federal court on or around Oct. 8.
Charters are NASCAR’s version of a franchise, which guarantees entry into each race (along with access to more of the race winnings and money from the season-long points fund than non-chartered teams).
Required reading
(Photo: Logan Riely / Getty Images)
Welcome to Literary Quotable Quotes, a quiz that tests your recognition of classic lines. This week’s installment highlights observations from future or alternate worlds depicted in popular science fiction. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’re intrigued and inspired to read more.
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
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