As football season gets underway, fan shops all across Louisiana are gearing up for their biggest sales of the year—just as they have every year before. But in 2008, it was a far different picture, as LSU was poised to face off against Ohio State in the BCS National Championship Game in the Louisiana Superdome. A win, retailers knew, would mean a windfall for those with purple and gold merchandise to sell.
Businesses across Baton Rouge that piggyback off LSU football are looking at a championship game windfall for the second time this decade. Some companies have even rented additional storage space to hold all of the purple-and-gold merchandise they expect to move in the weeks following the game. “It will be pandemonium for several days,” says Alan Wallace, general manager of Tiger Mania. “Tuesday morning, people will be waiting at the door for us to open. It will be like a game day for several days.”
—From the Jan. 1, 2008, issue of Business Report
+ ALSO FROM THAT ISSUE …
PHOTO: Jim Bernhard.jpg in FLASHBACK folder
SHAW SCRUTINY: Two high-profile stock analysts have different takes on the recent moves by Shaw Group CEO Jim Bernhard to sell off 988,000 shares of company stock. The Motley Fool called Shaw’s stock “the worst in the world.” But CNBC’s Jim Cramer says … Bernhard’s moves are nothing more than profit taking, because the company’s stock shot up so much this year. Shaw officials have said Bernhard sold off the stock as part of an effort to diversify his portfolio.
CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL: Building a freestanding children’s hospital in Baton Rouge makes no sense from a financial perspective. In every other sense, it’s the right thing to do. So says John Paul Fuenes, the administrator of Children’s Hospital at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, who gradually transitions into a job as president of the OLOL Foundation, where his first order of business will be fundraising for a new children’s hospital.
