Cup champion will receive far less cash in 2016
The championship check given to the Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series champion will be far smaller than it was in 2015 or previous years.
As part of the new revenue sharing agreement between NASCAR and team owners, the champion purse isn’t as large as it used to be. According to ESPN, the championship share of the purse will be “less than half” of what it was in 2015.
2015 Sprint Cup Series champion Kyle Busch said he was “well aware” of the fact that he would make less money in 2016 if he won a second title. Drivers’ contracts typically include shares of the purse winnings a team earns over the course of the season. But with the new revenue sharing and charter agreements in place, driver contracts have also been reworked over the 2016 season.
NASCAR no longer provides race winnings in its box scores.
“If you look at the formula, there’s a whole formula involved,” Busch said of the new payment structure. “It’s quite confusing. So I’m not exactly sure if I’ll make 100 percent of what I made last year or 80 percent or something within there. I don’t know exactly.”
For many of us, it’s nearly impossible to take sympathy with millionaire athletes and possible pay cuts. They make more in a season than lots of Americans will make in their lifetimes. But here’s a glimpse at just how stark the difference is between how it used to be for NASCAR champions and how it will be, via ESPN.
Sources familiar with the charter agreements indicated the 2016 bonus to the championship team is much closer to $2 million than $1.5 million. The last time Johnson was on stage, in 2013, the champion bonus was $5.2 million, with Johnson and his team having total earnings of $14.66 million. Johnson and his team did get a $7.225 million champion bonus in 2008.
The revenue streams were changed to help make it more sustainable for all teams on the grid. While NASCAR’s structure doesn’t lend itself to a salary cap or other monetary competitive balance measures stick-and-ball sports have, more equitable revenue sharing is a way for teams to have a stronger income stream outside of sponsorships.
“I’ll care, yes, I’ll care, but really my goal is to beat everyone,” Logano said about the the decreased payment for the winner. “That’s the biggest reward that you can feel from inside is that moment of victory, not necessarily the moment of the check, which like I said is still really cool. You can do a lot of great things with it, but that moment when you cross the line, like last weekend in Phoenix and you cross the start‑finish line for the checkered flag, and you realize you’re still alive in this championship and you’ve still got something and you attacked in those moments. That’s the coolest thing.”
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
