SMITH BRAIN TRUST – Football season hasn't even started and already the National Football League is tackling some difficult challenges. It's coming off a season that saw an 8 percent decline in television viewership and now is faced with startling new evidence about the serious medical risks its players face.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – The BBC's "Doctor Who" series has long embraced the idea of change. It's been written into the script for years, with the timelord protagonist's biological ability for regeneration and new incarnations.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Atari teased the gaming world on June 8 with a YouTube video promoting the company's first new console in 24 years. Besides ominous background music and close-up shots of a wood veneer surface, the only message is: "Coming soon."

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Has Starbucks figured out a way to entice its devoted morning-coffee crowd to come back later in the day? The Seattle-based retail chain is rolling out a line of ice cream coffee treats — called affogatos — at 100 stores across the country, betting that a more decadent coffee treat will inspire an afternoon or evening splurge.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Fox was unexpectedly scrambling this week to sell the last remaining in-game commercial spots for the Feb.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – A U.S.-Mexican border wall: President Donald Trump says he is ready to build one. And 84 Lumber wants to attach one to its brand, starting Super Bowl Sunday. Both have their critics.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – Adweek's list of the 10 best ads from 2016 runs the emotional gamut. There is comedy. There's drama. There's even a bit of spy intrigue. If that mix sounds a little like the box office for any given year, that's no surprise, says Henry C. Boyd III, marketing professor at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. "More and more we are seeing spots that are more than a commercial," he says.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – Last week, Domino's Pizza delivered a pizza by reindeer in Japan.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Donald Trump has a problem that the opinion polls aren't capturing. It's his brand. If the polls hold and Hillary Clinton wins the presidential election on Nov. 8, the New York mogul will be surrounded not just by the tatters of a failed political campaign, but also by a business brand that's been tarnished beyond recognition. Restoring that brand to its former luster could be his toughest challenge yet.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – The NFL's biggest concern this season likely isn't Colin Kaepernick or concussion risks or even who's going to the Super Bowl. It's eyeballs. The television juggernaut National Football League has seen its faithful TV audience unexpectedly deflate by more than 10 percent through the first five weeks of the season, according to Nielsen ratings data, with deeper drops notched during the Sunday, Monday and Thursday evening games.