Domain Suprise During English Premier League Game

Growing up, I loved playing soccer, and I played on organized teams through high school. I never really enjoyed watching soccer on television, because I didn’t follow any teams or players. Lately, I’ve been watching English Premier League football games when I catch them on tv here in the US. This morning, I tuned in to the Arsenal vs. Tottenham game on ESPN2 and was surprised about the domain names I saw advertised.

When I was in the UK (and other European cities), I saw many more ccTLD domain names advertised than anything else. In the UK especially, I saw mostly .co.uk domain names used by advertisers. This morning, I didn’t see a single .co.uk domain name used in the stadium signage or uniforms, and I was very surprised. I know the Premier League is global, but I would have thought there would be more local advertising at the stadium.

Some of the domain names I saw advertised were Arsenal.com, Emirates.com, BarclaysTicketOffice.com (forwards to Barclays.co.uk), NikeFootball.com, PaddyPower.com, and Mansion.com.

I am sure that advertising at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium is very costly, and probably too much for most local companies. However, it was still surprising to see the urls that were used. I would have been less surprised if this was a World Cup game, because those will be truly global, but since it was a EPL game, I was surprised.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

16 COMMENTS

  1. Nice post. I watched the game on ESPN 2 as well and what a game! I am from China but I have lived in the US for 8 years. I have found that Asia is where the big marketing money for football clubs can be found. A major source of money is TV rights locally, and like the US, these games are all broadcast live, mostly on special channels or at Bars. Football matches time zone wise can be very conducive for Asians because when the fixtures start, its 7 pm, perfect time to get drunk at the local drinking place and watch the game. Premier League and Spanish League is under constant media pressure to make their games start at around 1 or 2 pm GMT (and there is a lot of tweaking and argument on which fixtures get the best spots), which means games are in the evening in Asia, and in the morning in the US for ppl like us.

    Because so many people watch games around the world, you have those ads in Vietnamese during the Arsenal match just now. I have no idea what they are saying. Or you have Everton with the “Beer Chang” ad (a Thai beer) on their jersey. Its not because Beer Chang want Brits to drink it, but because they want more Thais (or ppl in places mostly in Asia where they are sitting in a bar) to drink it!

    Your blog about domain names is very interesting I will read more articles and subscribe. Cheers!

  2. US is lagging behind in using the .US cctld.It has to be popularized. For the elections we need to insist that the candidates use their .US extension in conjunction with .COM sites.That will be patiotic.Write to your representatives to us .US .The sport franchises should use the .US.

  3. When you have that many large companies opting to brand themselves via dotCom instead of they’re ccTld it leads me to believe that they may have acquired statistical feedback to back it up. These guys live and die off of their marketing research.

  4. Good to see the worldwide usage of .com (from a .com investor’s point of view), but what about the newly introduced non-latin character allowance form icann? I fear that it will hurt our investment since many chinese etc. users might go with domain names in a complete different alphabet.

  5. “.com” being the “international” or “world’s” internet address is true and will most likely be the case for some time to come. It is especially important for multinational corporations to obtain “.com’s” when marketing products or services targeted to more than one country.

    It is equally important though for a multinational corp’s. to obtain ccTLD’s for their products or services targeted to specific countries. “Local” has not only been a popular buzz word among marketers in the recent years but is especiallly true in today’s world down economy, with companies straggling to simply gain or maintain market share.

  6. Being from another part of the world, I can testify that English Premier League games are watched by soccer fans the world over.
    Especially when Arsenal or Chelsea are in the mix.

    The correct way to reach international clients would in fact be with a .com, as a .co.uk address would not be retained, say, by a viewer in Korea.

  7. I watch a lot of UK soccer on TV. What happens a lot is that for TV, the stadium advertising is superimposed over the actual in-stadium ads, often showing ads for completely different sponsors. I imagine the ads you see on TV are tied in the with the TV channel, whose ads would be targeted to their (international) audience, whereas the ads at the stadium are tied in with the soccer club. They do a really good job of making it look realistic, but if you have ever been to the stadiums, you can tell that it’s not the real stadium ads showing. Also, sometimes if you look closely on TV at some of the real close-up shots, you can see that the advertising is different – often static billboard advertising, whereas on TV it is generally moving on a digital screen. I didn’t see the match you are referring to, so I don’t know if that was the case for that match, but it certainly does happen a lot and might explain the predominance of dot com.

  8. I (one day I may not, but we seem to be on the same page on many subjects) agree completely with David Castello. Dot com has become Xerox for copiers…it is the way it is. And someone made expensive decisions to display and promote the .com versions of their sites, surely backed by evidence that it makes a difference. Not to disparage all other extensions…although 99% of my portfolio is .com…I believe opportunity exists with numerous other extensions.

  9. Elliott, great post. I think what most people are saying about this is right. I’m a huge football (or soccer?) fan and can testify that this probably has something to do with Arsenal’s global reputation and the kind of money it would take to advertise for a televised game in the Emirates Stadium. I think if the game was played at White Hart Lane (home of Tottenham) you would much more likely see .co.uk names in the equation. I know several companies such as Fly Emirates have a lot of sway at Arsenal, so perhaps their influence? However, I think it reaffirms that .com really is where it’s at still for many of the world’s largest companies. I am sure the TV audience is much more valuable to them than the ticket holders in the stadium.

  10. With all due respect this was one case and by Elliot.

    Go to the UK and you will see more local extension then .com

    Yes .com is king. Always will be. Shocked some with all the contacts you guys know, foreign domain investors you could be friends with thriving local extensions are doing just fine as far as branding locally.

    You can’t judge one post by Elliot and his observation and think .com is kicking everyone out of the game. Yes this was what Elliot observed. Great. One case. Not the true picture imo. Bring a lot of UK posters here and that will be the indication imo. I disagree on this one Elliot, dosent happen often but Elliot is right on one case.

  11. You only have to look back to Sedo’s news from August this year when they released statistics showing that the average price for co.uk had overtaken .com for the first time ever.

    However, although living in the UK I prefer to buy co.uk domains I would say approx 50% of my portfolio is .com. But as yet I haven’t sold any and all sales to date have been co.uk. I only buy .coms that mainly relate to the American, Australian and Canadian market if this is an indication of the mindset we British view the Internet.

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