ESPN Acquires CollegeFootballPlayoff.com Domain Name

According to a report from the Associated Press on Yahoo, “The  Bowl Championship Series  will be replaced by the College Football Playoff.” Interestingly, it appears that ESPN is now the registrant of the matching CollegeFootballPlayoff.com domain name.

It appears that the plural  CollegeFootballPlayoffs.com is owned by an unrelated entity, and it currently shows a generic Go Daddy PPC landing page. Perhaps they will purchase this domain name as well, since there will likely be some confusion when people visit the url.

CollegeFootballPlayoff.com was originally registered back in 2001, and it currently sports a creation date of October 2003. Prior to being owned by ESPN, this descriptive domain name was owned by someone in Spokane, Washington. The registrant was listed as “N/A,” and that registrant was listed as the owner until February.

On March 20, 2013, the new registrant of the domain name was listed as DigitalDNA, a company that among other things, acquires domain names on behalf of clients. According to its about us page, “DigitalDNA partners with clients to pinpoint, acquire and leverage the digital properties that will yield the maximum potential return on investment (ROI), while at the same time helping clients sell properties that are no longer important to their company’s branding efforts.” I believe the company is affiliated with Fairwinds Partners.

It’s interesting to me that ESPN owns the domain name rather than the organization that oversees that College Football Playoff. The registrant  for the  Bowl Championship Series domain name (BCSFootball.org) is Bill Hancock, who is the executive director of the Bowl Championship Series. According to a report on Philly.com, ESPN has the television rights through 2026.

Thanks to Mike Berkens for an assist on this. According to Mike, it “doesn’t really matter who owns the domain or the rights to it as long as the Gators win every few years.”