Denny Hamlin: NASCAR drivers should make 'NBA, NFL money'

Denny Hamlin thinks NASCAR drivers are underpaid in comparison to their NBA and NFL counterparts.

Since the consolidated national network TV deal began 2001, tracks have received 65 percent of the revenue from rights fees, with 25 percent going to teams and 10 percent to NASCAR. Hamlin would like to see that change.

"The TV dollars coming into NASCAR is higher than it's ever been, but we're seeing fewer and fewer teams, and it just can't survive. So it economically doesn't make sense," the 2016 Daytona 500 winner told NBC Sports' Nate Ryan at a charity event Wednesday. "The pie, the amount of TV money that the race teams share, has to go up, in my opinion."

Because of the risk involved and length of the schedule, which runs February through November, Hamlin says drivers deserve to make more money.

"I think we're way underpaid on that as race car drivers. That's a fact. I think there's no doubt doing what we do, the schedule we have, the danger we incur every single week, NASCAR drivers should be making NBA, NFL money.

"I really, truly believe that. But it can not come out of the owners' pockets."