Sports & Entertainment Beat

Welcome back to the Spotlight! After years of training and trials, our United States’ Olympians are assembling an impressive, gleaming mosaic of accomplishments as if their medals were tiles. In track & field, a new “World’s Fastest Man” was crowned, his name is Noah Lyles. In gymnastics, a hard-fought redemption was earned for Simone Biles, both individually and alongside teammate Jordan Chiles. Even in defeat, the pair generated smiles, in a show of sportsmanship and grace they bowed to the victor, in so doing, cementing courage in their profiles. I would be remiss not to mention swimmer Katie Ledecky’s continuing to stack up medals through butterflies, breaststrokes, and freestyles.  In the meantime, don’t forget USA basketball is in the gold medal game, so be sure to set your TV dials. Upon their return home, each of these athletes is going to receive endorsement deals in anything from technology to textiles and in their country be the opposite of exiles. I hope you enjoyed my poetic styles, and if you think I’ve run out of rhymes, I assure you I have them in piles. 

• • The US Army claims that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and his United Football League should refund the $6 million it paid for social media promotions intended to drive enlistments, when in actuality, no enlistments resulted from the promotions, and a number of enlistments may have even dropped out. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.
     
  • With sights set on appealing to a new generation of fans, the New York Yankees are putting out their own original content in the form of an animated Saturday morning cartoon series. On the one hand, I miss the good old days of winning the World Series. On the other hand, the series will be required curriculum for my boys.
     
  • NBA All-Star Steph Curry stole the show on Thursday, as his mockumentary series “Mr. Throwback” launched on Peacock, while he played the role of Mr. Comeback in Paris, propelling Team USA—who trailed by as many as 17 points--into the gold medal game with a victory over Serbia. Excellently scripted if you ask me.  Oh and by the way, the national bird of Serbia? You guessed it…the eastern imperial eagle.
     
  • While recording artist Adele had a $130 million structure built specifically for her performance residency in Munich, Germany, another recording artist is paying $1.5 million to have his slapped his name on the side of a stadium, as Pitbull enters into a multiyear naming rights deal with Florida International University. The delta can almost certainly be attributed to there being more construction costs, and better pretzels and beer