As Disney continues to consider selling an ownership stake in ESPN, Disney CEO Bob Iger told employees he’s not ruling out the possibility of not bringing in new financial partners.

Front Office Sports reported Wednesday that Iger spoke at a Disney town hall on Tuesday and there’s no requirement in place that says Disney must seek out new investors to maintain ESPN’s financial future.

“We could go it alone,” he said. “We are fully prepared to do that. It would be a little more challenging if we did.”

Disney has already had some level of conversations with potential partners including pro sports leagues and big tech companies.

NASCAR is on the verge of announcing a new TV rights deal that will see the racing organization bring in $1.1 billion annually from five TV partners.

The $1.1 billion figure represents a nearly 40% increase in what the organization receives from its current deals.

Beginning in 2025 and running through the 2031 season, NASCAR will air its first 14 Cup Series events with FOX and FS1. The next five events will air on Amazon Prime Video, making the first time a NASCAR event will be shown exclusively on a streaming service.

Following Amazon’s portion of the schedule, another five events will be broadcast on both TNT and the B/R Sports tier of the Max streaming service. The final 14 races of the year will be broadcast with NBC, USA Network, and Peacock, according to reporting from Sports Business Journal’s Adam Stern.

Previously, FOX Sports aired 18 races, while NBC aired 20, which includes two exhibition events.

In addition to its new deals with Amazon Prime Video and TNT for the Cup Series, NASCAR also has a previously announced new broadcast agreement with The CW to air each race of the Xfinity Series.

The upcoming announcement, which is expected either Wednesday or Thursday, comes on the heels of NASCAR President Steve Phelps admitting new TV partners would be entering the fray in the next contract.

“We are going to have an additional partner and we may have two additional partners,” Phelps told NBC Sports. “That’s kind of where we’re trying to figure out in these last few weeks — what that’s going to look like, but we already know we’re going to have more partners.”

First Take is in the midst of an all-time hot streak — and it just had its most-watched month ever.

According to a tweet posted by ESPN PR, First Take achieved its most-watched month ever in November 2023 with an average of 614,000 viewers. This marked the 16th consecutive month of growth for one of ESPN’s flagship programs.

Just last month, First Take hit its second-highest viewership numbers at an average of 544,000 viewers, and the entirety of 2023 has been marked by record highs for seemingly every month of the year.

The show has evolved from a debate show with two equal “combatants” into a show starring Stephen A. Smith that features a rotating group of analysts, including Shannon Sharpe, Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, and Pat McAfee, as they debate the day’s most pressing sports topics. Sharpe left Undisputed and joined First Take in August, while “Mad Dog” turned sporadic appearances on the program into a weekly gig starting in March 2022.

Smith and Russo worked together on the latter’s Mad Dog Radio radio station on SiriusXM from 2013-17 and remained close after Smith returned to ESPN.