question How to Go About Selling a Celebrity Domain?

[g0kh4n]

Long story short, I own the .net of a prominent sports player in the US. Easily in the top 10 most known; gets 370k exact searches a month. The .com belongs to the said celeb and redirects to their official Facebook page.

I have no experience dealing with the sale of such domain names, and am wondering if the experienced NP community would have any suggestions for me.

Thanks!

 

[NameClerk]

I think you have a difficult task.
They already own .com and simply redirect to Facebook.
If they do want another extension it would likely be .org.

Personally, if there's traffic, I would not do outreach, I would set a reasonable buy it now price and be patient...

 

[gilescoley]

Be careful doing this, it can open up all sorts of legal/trademark issues, just google "celeb domain names trademark" and you will see.

The wont be intersted in the .NET if they have the .COM anyway.

 

[g0kh4n]

I think you have a difficult task.
They already own .com and simply redirect to Facebook.
If they do want another extension it would likely be .org.

Personally, if there's traffic, I would not do outreach, I would set a reasonable buy it now price and be patient...

300+ extensions are taken so I had appraised .net as the best next thing after the .com, but your .org point makes sense.

I'm really just looking for a quick sale anyway so got no issue with a more than reasonable BIN. It cost me very little so it's basically impossible for me not to turn profit.

Be careful doing this, it can open up all sorts of legal/trademark issues, just google "celeb domain names trademark" and you will see.

The wont be intersted in the .NET if they have the .COM anyway.

Checked for TM issues but they do not have their name exclusively trademarked. Thanks for providing examples of precedent cases, though.

 

[Joe Styler]

I would ask myself if I were a celebrity or someone in my family how I would feel about someone buying the .net of my domain just to sell it to me. Then I would probably offer it to them for free or let it drop. That is my opinion. There are plenty of opportunities to make money with domains and any strategy aiming at one end user for the domain is not a good one from a business standpoint aside from any ethical concerns. So I would look to invest in domains with a broader appeal such as a business vertical with many potential buyers. On this particular domain I wouldn't sell it if it were me.

 

[gilescoley]

Checked for TM issues but they do not have their name exclusively trademarked. Thanks for providing examples of precedent cases, though.

If you check the examples, they don't have to trademark their name to cause trouble for you, they only have to indicate bad faith, which is pretty easy when registering celeb domains.

 

[g0kh4n]

I would ask myself if I were a celebrity or someone in my family how I would feel about someone buying the .net of my domain just to sell it to me. Then I would probably offer it to them for free or let it drop. That is my opinion. There are plenty of opportunities to make money with domains and any strategy aiming at one end user for the domain is not a good one from a business standpoint aside from any ethical concerns. So I would look to invest in domains with a broader appeal such as a business vertical with many potential buyers. On this particular domain I wouldn't sell it if it were me.

Absolutely on the same page with you. Really didn't catch it to sell. Was more of a novelty purchase and a very cheap one at that. This is the first time I own a domain such as this, hence my curiosity

If you check the examples, they don't have to trademark their name to cause trouble for you, they only have to indicate bad faith, which is pretty easy when registering celeb domains.

Still baffles me if you're such a highly known, top paid athlete and .net is dropping, why you would let it get into others' hands. It's silly to think people will just let those be.

 

[NickB]

Still baffles me if you're such a highly known, top paid athlete and .net is dropping, why you would let it get into others' hands. It's silly to think people will just let those be.

Surely a highly known paid top athlete will not have the time to check and their support/management team are not going to bother with the many different domain variables if they have the .com - the Brand has been secured in their eyes by owning the .com - all that is left is Brand protection and as alluded to above it is quite easy for celebs/ well known people to secure ownership if a domain is infringing on their intellectual property

Not everyone checks the expiry list or has alerts in place for their name/brand being used - though some surely do.....and I personally think they should, Google Alerts springs to mind.....

 

[biggie]

Hi

best use for it, is a fan site for that celeb

but as others have said, don't contact them

imo...

 

[lock]

After the celebrity says no you exhausted your one lead.