NASCAR’s charter agreement — its version of a franchise — with the team owners expires after the 2024 season. When — if? — a new agreement is signed will impact when and where drivers who are on the move can make decisions.

So in addition to keeping an eye on driver-team negotiations, there is a lot of focus on the team owner-NASCAR negotiations when looking at potential movement in the sport. Here are the key elements to follow, as the month of May typically is the time teams start making decisions about any openings they need to fill on the driver or sponsorship side.

Negotiations between the team owners and NASCAR have been at a standstill since January, so when NASCAR Chief Operating Officer Steve O’Donnell said at a sports business conference last month that they were “very close,” it took some owners by surprise.

NASCAR met with the Team Owners Council on Wednesday, and those in attendance indicated there was no progress. The 36 charter team owners all voluntarily contribute — there is no requirement to join — to the Race Team Alliance to give them a collective voice and operate programs to benefit the teams.

They also have designated four team executives — Hendrick vice chairman Jeff Gordon, Joe Gibbs Racing president David Alpern, RFK Racing president Steve Newmark and 23XI co-owner/Michael Jordan business manager Curtis Polk — as their “team negotiating committee” — but NASCAR has opted to talk to individual owners rather than the committee in recent months.

The teams want a higher percentage of media rights (currently they get 25 percent through the purse) and a percentage of future revenues (such as gambling rights) that NASCAR brings in. But they also want permanent charters, which NASCAR has told the teams that it won’t do since its media rights deals aren’t permanent.