Black Friday: From Police Headache to Retail GoldThe term's original meaning had nothing to do with profit.

From the show

Iconic Names Explained

Discover the true origin of 'Black Friday'. The name wasn't coined by accountants celebrating profits, but by overworked Philadelphia police complaining about traffic and chaos. It was a term retailers initially hated. This is the story of a deliberate and wildly successful marketing campaign from the 1980s that rebranded a negative term, creating the narrative of moving 'into the black' to fuel a national shopping frenzy.