Michael Jordan has built a career on raising the stakes.
He has won championships in Chicago. He has won Olympic gold. He has built a global empire.
Now he owns a Daytona 500-winning team. Tyler Reddick wheeled the No. 45 Toyota to victory in the 2026 season opener, delivering 23XI Racing its first win in “The Great American Race” and giving Michael Jordan his most significant milestone yet as a NASCAR team owner.
23XI Racing, the NASCAR Cup Series organization co-owned by Jordan and Denny Hamlin, is no longer a promising experiment. It is a Daytona 500-winning operation.
For a man synonymous with winning, this one lands differently.
The Daytona 500 is NASCAR’s defining event. It is the race that reshapes careers and accelerates organizations overnight.
And now, that trophy sits inside an operation backed by the six-time NBA champion.
Jordan Reacts in Victory Lane
Jordan has celebrated championships before.
But this one hit differently.
“I can’t even believe it. It’s so gratifying,” Jordan said minutes after the win in Victory Lane. “You never know how these races are going to end. You’re just trying to survive.”
That word, survive, says everything about Daytona.
The Daytona 500 is rarely about dominance. It is about timing, positioning and escaping chaos. Jordan understood that in the moment.
He also made sure the spotlight shifted to his driver.
“I thought (Reddick) did a great job … he doesn’t get enough credit … but we understand exactly what he did,” Jordan said.
Then he summed it up in a way only someone wired for titles could: “It feels like we won the championship.”
From Startup to Daytona 500 Champion
23XI Racing did not exist five years ago.
The organization was founded in 2020 and debuted in 2021, a partnership between the most famous basketball player in the world and veteran NASCAR driver Hamlin. The buzz was immediate and so was the skepticism.
Building a competitive Cup Series team is not a branding exercise. It is capital intensive, technical, political and brutally competitive. Established organizations spend decades trying to win the Daytona 500.
Jordan’s team just did it in Year Five. That timeline matters.
Very few new organizations reach Victory Lane in the Daytona 500 within their first five seasons. Fewer still do it under the spotlight that naturally follows Jordan.
This was not a legacy powerhouse collecting another trophy. It was a modern organization climbing into the sport’s most elite club. The Daytona 500 winner’s list includes names that define eras. Now 23XI Racing is etched into that history.
For Jordan, that represents more than optics. He has been intentional about 23XI from the beginning. He invested in both infrastructure and talent. He surrounded the organization with proven leadership and aligned it with Toyota Racing Development to ensure the team had access to championship-level resources.
This win validates that approach. It signals that 23XI can deliver when the stakes are highest. In NASCAR, that is what changes perception.
Jordan has never measured success by participation. He measures it in titles and, on Sunday, that same standard extended into NASCAR.
Michael Jordan’s NASCAR Team Wins the Daytona 500