Basketball legend Michael Jordan buys a car racing team

American basketball legend Michael Jordan decided to expand his business by purchasing a team in the NASCAR Cup Series motor racing, and he contracted black driver Bubba Wallace to lead the new team in the tournament from next season.

Jordan, who is considered the best player in NBA history and whose net worth is estimated at nearly $ 1.6 billion, will be the largest owner of the new team, with veteran driver Denny Hamlin as a partner with less shares.

"I grew up in North Carolina, and my parents used to take me and my brothers and sisters to the races, and I have been a NASCAR fan my whole life," said the legend who won a six-time NBA Championship in the Chicago Bulls. Denny Hamlin, to have Bubba Wallace lead us, that's very exciting for me. "

Jordan, who also owns the Charlotte Hornets professional basketball team, hopes his ownership of a NASCAR team will bring new fans to the white-dominated sport and boost minority participation.

Wallace, the only black driver in NASCAR, confirmed earlier this month that he would leave Richard Petty Motorsports' team.

The 26-year-old was very active this year in talking about combating racism in American society, especially after the killing of black citizen George Floyd in May of asphyxiation by a white policeman in Minneapolis.

In June, Wallace called on those responsible for NASCAR races to ban the raising of the Confederate flag in race tracks because it reminds blacks of a painful past in the United States and symbolizes in many eyes the South's legacy of slavery and racial discrimination.

This flag is raised on NASCAR circuits in the southern states, which are the stronghold of this sport, but those responsible for this championship decided later to ban it from being raised in races.

Wallace made the headlines in June after his team reported that he had found a noose hanging in his garage on the Taladega SuperSpeedway in Alabama, but the FBI investigation showed that the black driver was not a victim of a hate crime and that the gallows were not. It was a rope hanging from a garage door and it's been there since 2019.

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