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NASCAR Trial: The Sport Is Losing | Matt Weaver Reports · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  Greetings from a very frigid Uptown Charlotte.
• 0:07
  The the clearest sign that I've become something of a of a local
• 0:11
  or or at least a regular is that I've gotten in the habit of
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  calling it Uptown instead of downtown.
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  That's the thing apparently, but just figured I would update
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  update you guys on some trial thoughts.
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  Also, it's so cold. It's like 30 to 31° that walking
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  and talking is good for my my warmth.
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  Trying to run over here car rolling into a hotel.
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  People keep asking me, you know, who do you think is winning?
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  I don't think that's a fair, a fairway of looking at this.
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  And I I think this is problematic of our culture and
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  in general, right? We, we, we, we treat politics
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  this way. We treat trials this way.
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  Hold please. I digress.
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  We, we, we, we treat the trial like we treat our politics.
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  And I think we treat both of them wrong.
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  That it's not a, it's not a sporting contest, right?
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  Like the the best way for me to answer that question while also
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  acknowledging that I'm not a lawyer.
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  And so like, I can't even tell you legally, you know what the
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  score is, though, that it matters.
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  The jury can't either. And the jury's being asked to
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  decide something and they're not legal scholars anyway.
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  But I keep telling people that the analogy I use is this is not
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  a basketball game in the sense that it's not like both sides
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  are getting the ball and trying to put points on the board.
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  You know, shooting 2 shooting threes at best.
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  What's happening last week in the first couple of days of this
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  week is that 2311 in front row Jeffrey Kessler and company,
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  they get a chance to put points on the board.
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  But the way the the legal process works is it's not for
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  NASCAR to then get the ball and try to score.
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  They try to take points off the board.
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  If we have to use a sporting analogy, which I think so many
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  of you want to do, that's what happens, right?
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  So like Kessler and company present their their case and
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  they if you if you followed every single day, it's very
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  clear the narratives that they're building.
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  And under cross examination, Chris Shates and Larry Buterman
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  and that whole group, they're trying to rebut the the
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  arguments that are being made by Kessler 2311 in front row.
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  And so they're not trying to score points themselves.
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  That comes at some point starting tomorrow.
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  And however long this goes, it'll be, you know, the NASCAR
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  side's opportunity to make their legal argument and it'll then be
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  on 2311 in front row to rebut that under their cross
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  examination. So if you have to put points on
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  the board, you don't calculate that until after the trial is
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  over. And certainly Judge Bell has
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  been arguing that or, or or just encouraging is the better word.
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  The jury to remember that you know, don't make your mind up
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  until you've heard all the evidence and Chris Yates has
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  said repeatedly, just remember you're hearing just one side of
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  the argument. And So what I would tell you is
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  that obviously the 2311 in front row case.
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  How do I want to phrase this? I I want to be fair.
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  There's two ways that I look at this case right.
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  I mean, there's the, the things that matter from an industry
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  standpoint, from a NASCAR racing fan, racing enthusiast
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  standpoint. Like I'll give you an example.
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  Hold on. I was walking with my book bag
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  on one shoulder switch up. There are things that matter
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  from a, you know, a racing enthusiast standpoint that have
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  no legal basis for consideration whatsoever.
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  All that matters is that this court, actually the court that's
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  right there in front of me now, right there, that court, that
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  court, the Western District of North Carolina has found that
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  NASCAR is indeed a monopsony, which is a buyer's monopoly,
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  meaning they are the only buyer of a service in the market.
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  And the market is here in my car.
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  Got some ice starting to form on it, too.
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  It's cold. A monopsony is the only buyer in
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  a market and for the case of this conversation, the the
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  market is premier stock car teams.
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  So the court has decided I want a car that NASCAR is a
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  monopsony, right? And so that's without question.
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  I, I keep seeing tweets sometimes Facebook comments is
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  like, see, NASCAR is a monopoly. Yeah, we, we know that, but
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  that's not illegal. That's not that's not the matter
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  at hand here. So the matter at hand and what
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  the judge has encouraged this jury to to consider is did
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  NASCAR use their monopsony power in the market to a harm
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  competition? Because that is what the entire
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  premise of the Sherman Antitrust Act is designed to do, is to
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  encourage competition. And so if a monopsony is using
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  their their monopoly power to hurt competition, that's bad.
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  And the other thing is, is do they use their monopsony power
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  to harm those who are in the market, right.
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  So that would be the teams, those who are being bought in
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  in, in the market. So that's the way I encourage
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  everyone to look at this case, you know, whether it's the
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  sensational stuff about teams finances or Richard Childress
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  text messages or what have you, right?
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  Like try to ask yourself, is this just interesting to me?
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  There's a lot of things here that are interesting to me, but
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  you didn't have to run it through the filter of is it
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  relevant to determining if NASCAR is a a monopsony that
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  harmed competition or those in the marketplace.
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  I'm walking by the court. I'll show you guys the court
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  here in a second. It's a nice courtroom.
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  Apparently was updated a couple of couple years ago, I think
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  looked at the the renderings, but there's no way to determine
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  who's winning. There's not a a scorecard,
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  right? So turn around here because I
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  don't want to walk. There's a lady walking her dog
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  and I don't want to be a creep or a weirdo, but I'm just
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  shooting this video. But those are the conversations
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  I want all of you to to have. And then the other thing, too,
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  obviously, is that awesome train of thought.
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  Oh, the jury. I was going to talk about the
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  jury. We can talk about our opinions
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  and our legal acumen. This thing is being decided by
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  literally, you know, 6 + 3, three backups of everyday
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  people, people who are not super NASCAR enthusiasts, people who
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  are not legal analyst. And so sometimes both sides do
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  things to try to play to that crowd, right?
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  I mean, to either make someone look unreliable to catch them in
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  a lie. And so it's not even about the
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  merits of the the case, which by the way, is why I think this
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  thing is going to go to regardless of who wins and
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  loses. It's going to go to the appeals
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  court, the 4th Circuit of Appeals in Richmond, VA, where
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  the injunction was heard and decided about the charters
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  earlier this year. That's the second step, the
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  appeals court. And they could add another year
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  to whatever the outcome is, whatever the jury decides.
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  And from there, if the 4th Circuit rules and the losing
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  party doesn't like that outcome, it could be petitioned to the
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  Supreme Court. Now, the Supreme Court does not
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  hear every single case that their petition for.
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  It's a very small percentage. But what could make this thing
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  really crazy is I'm kind of a amateur legal person.
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  Like, I really love, you know, the politics meets the law
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  space. And so I understand the process
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  a little bit. But what could happen?
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  Let's just say for a second that SCOTUS is even remotely
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  interested in hearing this case. They could determine that what
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  has been decided so far is too broad and they'll send it back
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  to this court, District Court, to narrow the scope of what
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  needs to be decided before it could then go back to the 4th
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  Circuit, go back to SCOTUS. And what I'm trying to tell you
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  is this could be the first year that we've been through this 15
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  months now of a multi year process.
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  And so I think when I wrote my trial preview 2 weeks ago,
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  before this started right before Thanksgiving, I said this is not
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  the beginning of the end. This is the end of the beginning
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  potentially. I think there's a long a long
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  way to go on this and we're just starting to scrape the surface.
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  A lot of people keep asking me, what do I think?
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  There's one guy, Dave. Dave, I'm talking to you.
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  I appreciate your your support. You're a fan of mine.
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  But I also see that you're criticizing those of us in the
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  media for not having opinions or we're all reporting the same
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  things. This is real life.
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  And like, listen, we when we cover racing, which is a
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  entertainment product for the most part, it's cool for me to
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  share what I think about the playoff format or race format or
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  competition package. And the grand scheme of things
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  doesn't matter, right? As race cars going in circles,
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  what's happening in here? This is this is the real.
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  This is the real. And it's not my money.
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  It's never going to be my money. It doesn't behoove me to, you
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  know, pick a side to, to, to root for one side or the other.
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  Candidly, I think there's merits for both, rightly.
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  I think anything that turns into a legal dispute, if you're
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  intellectually honest and you look at things objectively, you
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  can see arguments for both sides objectively and maybe a little
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  subjectively. As a race fan, I want teams to
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  be healthier. I think having an entity like
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  NASCAR that overseas competition, a separation
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  between the sanctioning body and the competitors, that's
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  generally healthy. I don't like the idea of the
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  France family owning teams. I know we see that in IndyCar
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  and that's been something that's been argued here too, and we saw
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  how bad that could be in IndyCar this past season with some of
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  the controversies going on at Team Penske.
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  So I have opinions, rightly. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not
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  Switzerland. I just want to be very careful
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  that when sharing my opinions, I don't make an ass of myself in
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  the process and just say things that are uncoupled, uncoupled,
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  uncoupled from reality. The one opinion that I have
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  that's the strongest in my opinion is that it's just
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  disappointing. So this, this is my strongest
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  opinion on the matter. TV ratings are down.
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  They're down in part because we're not as healthy as we used
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  to be, but it's also down because NASCAR, and they told
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  the teams this in advance, made a strategic decision to try to
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  jump on streaming early enough while, you know, the money was
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  there, while there was growth opportunities, but it meant that
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  overall audience would go down 14 to 15%.
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  Regardless of why our audience is down.
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  I say are because we're all in this boat together, right?
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  I mean, I, I don't get paid to write about Motorsports unless
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  the ecosystem is healthy. So like I, I will say we because
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  I am in this ship and so are you.
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  We all are when we talk about stakeholders, the industry,
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  that's all of us, right. So we all have equal stake in
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  this and some, some capacity. So my strongest opinion about
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  this trial is that I'm just disappointed that it's gotten to
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  this part, even though I recognize why and I respect and
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  I, I understand why. But the part that disappoints me
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  the most is that at a time to where we need to as an industry,
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  be growing the audience, trying to find the laps fan and to
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  bring them back, try to find new fans and bring them here, by the
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  way, that's important. I know some of you hardcore fans
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  feel like you know you've been chased away in the pursuit of
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  the the new fan. Both matter, man, and both
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  matter a lot. But none of that matters right
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  now because we're not doing that.
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  We're not trying to chase the laps fan.
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  We're not trying to chase the the new fan because what's
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  happening here is that the sanctioning body is telling two
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  teams that they suck and two teams are telling the
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  sanctioning body that they suck. All this year fans have been
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  saying the sanctioning body sucks.
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  And you know, there's people in the sanctioning body that are
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  frustrated with fans, frustrated with media.
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  There's media who's frustrated with fans.
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  And I say all of this because we are all telling each other and
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  the world how much we suck. And that part's frustrating,
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  man. And so I really just hope you,
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  you asked me for my opinion, right, Dave?
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  You asked me for my opinion. I just, I keep hoping this thing
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  finds a settlement that is amenable to all parties because
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  right now I do like broom broom, but not right now.
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  I'm trying to have a conversation.
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  I hope there's an amenable solution here because more than
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  anything, this industry just needs to start putting together
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  holistic conversations with everyone involved about how
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  we're going to grow this sport, right?
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  How to make this car shut up. This is my Robin Miller moment
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  where it's like, shut them up. I'm trying to shoot a video, so
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  my Robin Miller is my hero. So I've always wanted to do
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  that. I'm not going to cuss here
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  because I don't want to be memed yet.
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  There's enough things to meme me over, I just hope that this
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  doesn't take 345 years goes the SCOTUS route.
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  Because right now NASCAR, like all facets of the motorsport
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  industry, short track racing, dirt racing, straight line
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  racing, all of it. Motorsport is not as popular on
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  the whole as it was 152025 years ago.
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  That's just a objective fact. And I hope that whatever happens
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  by the end here in this court, whatever court across the board,
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  leaves this industry in a place to where it starts to be able to
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  pick up the pieces and get healthier.
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  That is my opinion. And hopefully no one gets mad at
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  that because I don't think that's, it's not quite
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  Switzerland, but it's pretty close.
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  But it's really how I feel. And so I'm going to keep
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  covering this. And yes, we're all going to have
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  the, you know, the same quotes and the same material because
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  they're all stuck in the same courtroom, you know, listening
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  to the same testimony. This isn't like the garage where
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  you can walk in there and get whoever you want.
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  The testimony is what the testimony is.
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  And so it's an interesting story.
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  I'll close with this man. I mean, it's the, it's been
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  interesting. People keep saying, is it fun?
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  It's not fun because you're seeing, you know, the sport
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  being torn apart by everyone involved in it.
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  That part's not fun. But I, I'm watching this, this
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  part of the industry that I've spent my entire adult life
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  trying to be a part of its pieces deconstructed and laid
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  bare. And that's really fascinating to
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  see the charter agreement, see the sanctioning agreements, to
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  see private communications, to see how everyone really feels
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  and how everything really works. The, the watch has been
• 19:53
  deconstructed and you see all of its pieces and then and how it
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  works. And that part's been fascinating
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  and hopefully it ends on Friday because I'm I'm fascinated out.
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  I'm ready for Christmas. I went to the Derby.
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  I'm sleepy from that say I got the, you know, the dark circle
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  thing going on as bad as I thought it would look, but I'm
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  I'm tired, y'all. And so that's what I think about
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  the 2311 in front row Motorsports versus NASCAR
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  antitrust trial. Let me know what you guys think
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  and maybe we'll keep doing some more of these.
• 20:25
  Throughout the week and just in general, people seem to like me
• 20:29
  yakking in front of a phone, and so if you guys like it, I'll
• 20:32
  keep doing it. I'm no Kenny Wallace, I don't
• 20:34
  have the Sunoco mug. I'm open to it if someone wants
• 20:38
  to sponsor a mug. I'm a coffee drinker.
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  I just got kicked out of Starbucks, so I don't have the
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  mug on me, but I like talking racing with Y'all and I like
• 20:45
  talking NASCART with y'all. So we'll do it again in the
• 20:48
  morning. Talk to y'all later.