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With a new deal with NASCAR TV on the horizon, fellow Cup drivers advised Chase Briscoe not to sign a contract extension with Stewart-Haas Racing beyond next year.
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The teams have told NASCAR that they want a larger percentage of the TV money than they currently receive.
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Should a new television deal significantly change the amount of money awarded to the teams, Briscoe and Stewart-Haas Racing reserve the right to return to the table.
With NASCAR’s current $8.2 billion television deal with Fox and NBC set to expire at the end of 2024, fellow drivers have advised Chase Briscoe not to sign a contract extension with Stewart-Haas Racing beyond next year, but when offered one, he took it.
However, Briscoe and the Kannapolis, NC team made sure their bases were covered regarding any new TV money that might come along.
“We’ve had to put a lot of provisions into it (contract) if (the TV money) gets restructured,” Briscoe said Thursday. “It’s not fair to the team and it’s not fair to me, obviously, if the whole structure of the money that goes into the sport changes. We just have to have a lot of words in there where if it’s changed and when it’s figured out, obviously we’ll go back and sit down and try to figure out what’s right for both of us.
The teams have told NASCAR that they want a larger percentage of the TV money than they currently receive. Under the current deal signed in 2014, teams get 25% of the media money while tracks get 65% and NASCAR keeps 10%.
Briscoe, who picked up his first NASCAR Cup win last season, believed SHR took the initiative to sign his extension due to Kevin Harvick’s final full-time season start and Aric’s uncertain future. Almirola beyond 2023. However, he admitted that he also wanted to get the contract finalized.
“The best thing is having that comfort, knowing that for the next few years I will have a job. That’s really important, especially when you’re raising a young child,” said Briscoe, who slept on friends’ couches for three years and volunteered at different places as he tried to get a foothold in the sport.
“The bigger thing about the whole thing is how it affects my family versus how it affects me.”
Briscoe said that during the time he experienced the couch-to-couch ordeal, his friends told him he was wasting his time trying to get into NASCAR’s premier series.
“One of my friends texted me today and said, ‘I’m glad you didn’t listen to me,'” Briscoe said on Thursday. “It’s pretty crazy to see what it’s turned into.”
With the contract extension, Briscoe will continue with the No. 2 Ford Mustang. 14 of SHR.
