Chase Briscoe Inks NASCAR Contract Extension with SHR, But There's a Catch

• With a new NASCAR TV deal on the horizon, fellow Cup drivers advised Chase Briscoe not to sign a contract extension with Stewart-Haas Racing beyond next year.

• The teams have told NASCAR they want a larger percentage of the TV money than what they currently receive.

• Should a new TV deal significantly change the amount of money awarded the teams, Briscoe and Stewart-Haas Racing reserve the return to return to the table.

With NASCAR’s current $8.2 billion TV contract with Fox and NBC set to expire at the end of 2024, fellow drivers advised Chase Briscoe not to sign a contract extension with Stewart-Haas Racing beyond next year, but when one was offered, he accepted it.

However, Briscoe and the Kannapolis, N.C.-based team made sure their bases were covered regarding any new TV money that might come their way.

“We had to put a lot of provisions in it (contract) if it (TV money) gets restructured,” Briscoe said Thursday. “It’s not fair to the team and it’s not fair to me, obviously, either if the whole structure of the money going into the sport changes. We just have to have a lot of wording in there to where if it does get changed and when it gets figured out, we’ll obviously come back and sit down and try to figure out what’s fair for both of us.”

The teams have told NASCAR they want a larger percentage of the TV money than what they currently receive. Under the current deal signed in 2014, the teams receive 25% of the media money while the tracks get 65% and NASCAR keeps 10%.

Briscoe, who collected his first NASCAR Cup victory last season, believed SHR took the initiative to sign his extension because of Kevin Harvick entering his final full-time season and Aric Almirola’s uncertain future beyond 2023. However, he admitted he wanted to get the contract finalized as well.

“The nicest thing is just having that comfortability, knowing that for the next few years I’m gonna have a job. That’s really important, especially when you’re raising a little one,” said Briscoe, who slept on friends’ couches for three years and volunteered at different places while trying to gain a foothold in the sport.

“That’s most important about the whole thing is how it affects my family versus how it affects me.”

Briscoe said during the time he experienced the couch-to-couch ordeal his buddies told him he was wasting his time trying to break into NASCAR’s premier series.

“One of my buddies texted me today and said, ‘I’m glad you didn’t listen to me,’” Briscoe said Thursday. “It’s pretty crazy to see what it’s turned into.”

With the contract extension, Briscoe will continue in SHR’s No. 14 Ford Mustang.