Dallas Cowboys Great Emmitt Smith Latest Burned By NASCAR & Validates Jeff Gordon's Alarming Message

In 2021, former Dallas Cowboys star running back and NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith announced he was following a line of other big-name celebrities, including Michael Jordan and Pitbull, in becoming a NASCAR team owner. He partnered with military veteran Jesse Iwuji to launch an Xfinity Series team (Jesse Iwuji Motorsports) for 2022.

The season finished in November and there's no denying it was a struggle for the first-year team, which recorded a single top-10 finish and 7 DNFs. That's not surprising for a new group. However, the organization was completely surprised in September when an official from Equity Prime Mortgage, which was a sponsor for 14 races, informed the team that the company would no longer be able to fulfill its sponsorship obligations and forego the remaining payments on the contract.

This information was made public this week as part of a lawsuit filed in Florida, where the race team is seeking $4.125 million, or the amount remaining on the contract. This story highlights the overarching problem within NASCAR how teams can get hurt financially because the sport is very sponsor-dependent.

Jeff Gordon and a group of other top team officials, who are part of the Race Team Alliance, called attention to the concerning issue at a press conference back in October as part of a campaign to inform the general public that teams are struggling financially because of a broken sponsor-dependent business model and how they are hoping to correct it by getting a bigger piece of the pie in the upcoming TV deal. The executives said it's a pivotal time in the sport's history.

Smith and Iwuji's troubles are just the latest in a line of past teams that have been burned by sponsors. Fans are hoping that NASCAR is willing to negotiate and these types of situations can be avoided altogether in the future, and as a result, teams will be able to succeed financially and willing to stay within the sport for the long haul.

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