Inventory Part 3--Ghouls at the Gate

Any day now, if not already, your local store will set up display of Halloween costumes and candy. As October progresses and the inventory dwindles the remaining product will get spread out so those showing up on October 30 will find a thin veneer of Milk Duds, Rolos and candy corn covering the shelves. Gone are the Reese's, Snickers, and Butterfingers so rather than bringing in product, the store just sells what you got.

ESPN has a problem in October with baseball over and the NFL Sunday Night game now on NBC the programming shelf is bare. The solution as you are no doubt aware is the playing of college football on Sunday Night. The games begin with Northern Illinois at Miami (Ohio) on October 8 and ending November 5 with Southern Miss at Memphis (with Morehouse at Miles on ESPNU). After that date the new inventory of college basketball showing up to fill the shelves very much like the Christmas candy filling up the space where the Halloween candy had been. Tradition was that college football games were played on Saturdays but the fans with their remotes have approved of every other day of the week even pushing past the protests of Friday night for high school games.

Major League Baseball had a tradition of taking Sunday Night off but ESPN changed that… It is easy to blame ESPN but if there were no eyeballs on the screen the product would not exist and rest assured that someone actually likes Milk Duds or at the very least is willing to buy those few bags for the ghouls that will show up at the door, even on a Sunday night.