SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:  

ANOTHER NOSEDIVING SPORT – FROM OUTKICK.COM:  Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the Bucks and Suns drew 9.6 million viewers on Saturday, down enormously from 2019’s Warriors-Raptors Game 5, which averaged 18.4 million viewers.  Remember, NBA media demanded last year that we discount the 2020 NBA Finals’ atrocious ratings because the matchup took place out of season and during a pandemic. So, as a nice guy, I’m honoring their requests and only comparing the 2021 Finals to 2019.   When ratings are cut in half, that's trouble.  Baseball is also in trouble.  And the NFL is setting in place practices at future football games that are beyond woke, and will turn off millions.  At some point the calculator will win, and networks may have to drop most professional sports, just as they once dumped Miss America. 

GETTING AT THE TRUTH – FROM COLLEGE FIX:    Republican Senators, including Tim Scott of South Carolina and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have introduced legislation to increase transparency surrounding the money that foreign countries give to American universities.  The Foreign Funding Accountability Act would require the disclosure of full names of foreign entities, disclosure of the specific purposes of foreign gift transactions and clarification that gifts to university foundations are not exempt from disclosure.  It would also lower the minimum reporting threshold for disclosure—from $250,000 to $25,000.  Multiple investigations have uncovered gaps between money received by universities from foreign entities and the amount reported to authorities.  A Wall Street Journal report in 2020 that found Cornell University failed to report more than $1.2 billion in foreign funds, including $760 million related to its campus in Qatar and about $1 million in contracts from Chinese telecom company Huawei Technologies Co.  A security analyst previously told The College Fix that foreign money presents a national threat to the country.  “Our conclusion was that the foreign funding presented a majority threat to our national security and the integrity of our education,” Ryan Mauro, of the Clarion Project, told The Fix.

July 20, 2021