Roush

Brad Keselowski is waiting to see how the new TV deal and Charter agreements come together before deciding on adding more teams to RFKs roster.

Team co-owner Brad Keselowski expects NASCAR’s deal with the CW Network to play a role in RFK Racing’s decision to field a Xfinity Series team, but he says the organization will wait until the new Cup Series TV contract and charter system are finalized before expanding to three teams in the sanctioning body’s premier series.

The current TV contract expires at the end of 2024. NASCAR recently announced the Xfinity Series races, practice and qualifying will be televised exclusively on the CW Network 2025-2031. The current Charters expire at the end of the 2024 season. The teams want NASCAR to make the Charters permanent and to give them a larger percentage of the TV money. Currently, the tracks receive 65 percent of the TV money, the teams get 25 percent and NASCAR 10 percent.

“It’s almost impossible to buy a Charter. Nobody is selling one,” Keselowski says. “No matter what you offer, you can’t buy one. I think there’s been some people knocking on the door with a lot of money and the answer is your money’s not good anywhere.

“Everybody on the team owner side wants to see where the charter agreement goes and where the TV rights deal, media rights deal goes. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out over the next 24 months when this thing gets announced.

“Ultimately, we would like to get to a third car. It has to be possible and right now it’s not possible.”

From 1998-2000, Roush fielded six cars in the Cup Series, the most of any team at that time. It reduced its operation to four cars in 2001, increased it to five in 2002-03, then up to seven in 2004 with four of them operating on a full-time basis. The last time Roush fielded seven Cup cars in a single season was 2006. During this time, NASCAR instituted a rule stating that each team could field only four cars. Roush reduced its inventory to meet NASCAR’s new rule as the sponsorship for each team expired.

RFK Racing currently has an alliance with Rick Ware Racing and Keselowski says the organization was “quite satisfied” with that relationship. He says it allows the team to add some depth to its roster without making a large financial commitment to fielding a third car.

In regards to the Xfinity Series, Keselowski described NASCAR’s TV deal with the CW Network as “intriguing” and a “big win for our industry.”

“I would like to think the series being broadcast would be able to attract the partners that we would need to be able to justify that level of investment that it takes to run that series,” Keselowski says. “Ultimately, that will be the deciding factor.”

RFK Racing, which was originally known as Roush Racing and then Roush Fenway Racing, fielded a team in NASCAR’s Xfinity Series 1992-2018. In 2018, the operation fielded Xfinity Series entries for five different drivers with Ryan Reed being the only fulltime driver. Competing in selected Xfinity races that year were Chase Briscoe, Austin Cindric, Conor Daly, and Ty Majeski.

During the 27 years Roush fielded a Xfinity Series team, five championships were earned. Greg Biffle earned the first one in 2002. Carl Edwards claimed the second in 2007. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. picked up the third and fourth title 2011-12. Chris Buescher was responsible for the fifth Xfinity Series championship in 2015.

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