NASCAR Agrees to Buy Daytona Race Track Owner

Stock car racing’s NASCAR organization has agreed to take control of International Speedway Corp. in a deal worth $2 billion.

The acquisition will create a group of privately held companies led by the France family. The acquisition of ISC at $45 per share is expected to be finalized before the end of 2019.

Both companies were founded by Bill France, whose son Jim now chairs each of them. The senior France launched ISC, which built the Daytona International Speedway, in 1950. The company now owns a dozen tracks, including Talladega, Darlington and Homestead-Miami.

France founded the National Assn. for Stock Car Auto Racing three years later, growing it into the most popular racing series in the U.S. But attendance and television ratings have been declining for years. NASCAR concedes that the current 38-race schedule for its top Cup Series is too much for teams and fans alike.

By gaining direct control over many of the tracks its series race on, NASCAR is considered likely to prune its schedule to favor its own venues. NASCAR’s current contracts with race tracks will expire at the end of next year’s season.

NASCAR announced last November it had made a non-binding offer to acquire ISC. The move came six months after the France family began exploring a possible sale of NASCAR instead.