NBA Great Michael Jordan Going to NASCAR

According to NASCAR, the claims on social media are true. Former NBA player Michael Jordan will be joining NASCAR’s top level of racing in 2021 as a team owner. 

Jordan will be partnering with Denny Hamlin, one of the most successful drivers in the sport, to form a NASCAR team with Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., the lone Black driver on NASCAR’s top level. According to the New York Times, Jordan and Wallace coming together is significant in a sport that historically lacks minority representation and has struggled to expand and diversify its largely white fan base. Jordan will become the first African-American majority owner in NASCAR since Wendell Scott raced in the 1960s Civil Rights era. 

ESPN writes that Jordan’s entry into the world of car racing is not as strange as it might seem. As a child growing up in Wilmington, North Carolina, his father, James, would often take Michael and his siblings to Winston Cup Series races around the Carolinas, places like Charlotte, Darlington and Rockingham, and even all the way to Daytona Beach, Florida.

Jordan told NBC Sports that one of his main goals is to create more opportunities for Black people in racing: “It’s huge,” Jordan said. “It’s absolutely huge. To me, you’re basically diving into a situation where very few Black people have been present into the NASCAR arena.” Jordan also wants to do more than increase diversity. Jordan further said to Yahoo Sports that he is coming in to win: “My biggest conversation to Denny was, ‘Look, I don’t want to get in there to just go around the races and just go around and around and around and finish up 18th, 19th, 20th, 30th,’” Jordan said. “I want to win. I want to be put in a position for the best chance for us to win. That’s my competitive nature. That’s always been who I am.”

Jordan, who also owns the Charlotte Hornets, will become a NASCAR team owner in 2021.