Champions League, Popular Culture and Domaining

Posted on April 22nd, 2008 by admin in Domain News | No Comments »

I am an avid football fan. Real football or as the Americans call it, soccer. I watch it, play it, read about it on a daily basis – basically I am a football addict.

Considering the amount of money that is poured into the football industry – yes it is an industry – I can tell you that there are many people just like me. People that get on the web on a daily basis looking for football scores, fixtures, tables, player profiles etc.

A lot of fans = big money. Being a domainer I am always on the look out for big money niches.

There are two significant football matches being played tonight and tomorrow. Liverpool is taking on Chelsea at Anfield tonight while Barcelona will tackle Manchester United at the Nou Camp tomorrow. Both games are semi-finals in the golden hen of European football – the Uefa Champions League.

These two games will feature a number of true world stars of the world game. These guys have become true icons of popular culture which surpasses the game itself. Liverpool have Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Jamie Caragher. Chelsea have Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Andrei Shevchenko and Michael Essien. Barca have Lionel Messi, Ronaldinho, Thiery Henry, Samuel Eto’o. United have Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo. The list goes on.

My point being?

Domaining opportunities lie behind every player’s name. Now I am not talking about domain squatting but actually developing these domain names into fan portals or fan sites. RonaldinhoGaucho.com is the official Ronaldinho website while Ronaldinho.com is a fan site. Imagine the traffic Ronaldinho.com gets day in day out? WayneRooney.com is the Wayne Rooney official website but I am pretty sure Rooney.com gets quite a few hits on a daily basis. DidierDrogba.com is the official Drogba site but I am sure Drogba.com gets quite a few daily hits too.

Anyways, you get the point.

If you try different variations of the above player names in various tlds you will notice that all the major tlds have already been taken up, either developed into fan sites or parked for revenue.

I think I better watch the next Under 18 or Under 21 Fifa World Cup to check out the football stars of tomorrow.

These games are famous for featuring various club scouts looking at potential players but I am sure there will be quite a few interested domainers in the stands too.