Professional Sports leagues and domain names

When it comes to professional sports leagues the approach to domain names is not the same.

In this post we are going to look at the NHL (National Hockey League) and MLB (Major League Baseball).

The news today that Seattle named their new NHL franchise the Kraken got people talking plenty in sports tv and also in domaining circles.

NHL

Domain investors looked at Kraken as odd because they won’t be able to get Kraken.com ( a cryptocurrency exchange).

But when we look at the NHL they don’t care much for securing the team mascot name in .com. There are 32 NHL teams and only 8 or 25% of their .com.

(Bold means they own the mascot name in .com)

Carolina Hurricanes *
Columbus Blue Jackets *
New Jersey Devils
New York Islanders
New York Rangers
Philadelphia Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins
Washington Capitals
Boston Bruins
Buffalo Sabres *
Detroit Red Wings
Florida Panthers
Montréal Canadiens *
Ottawa Senators *
Tampa Bay Lightning
Toronto Maple Leafs *
Chicago Blackhawks
Colorado Avalanche
Dallas Stars
Minnesota Wild *
Nashville Predators
St. Louis Blues
Winnipeg Jets
Anaheim Ducks
Arizona Coyotes
Calgary Flames
Edmonton Oilers
Los Angeles Kings
San Jose Sharks
Vancouver Canucks *
Vegas Golden Knights
Seattle Kraken

The NHL was branding around .tv. I started writing about that in 2015, I sold GoldenKnights.tv for $7,888 when they joined the NHL.

Those names do not seem to be propagating lately. So the NHL might have a real problem with their domain name strategy.

MLB

Major League Baseball has a much stronger domain ownership of their matching mascot name in .com.

Out of 30 teams only 3 teams or 10% do not have their mascot in .com.

(Bold means they don’t have their .com)

Arizona Diamondbacks
Atlanta Braves
Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox
Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Sox
Cincinnati Reds
Cleveland Indians
Colorado Rockies
Detroit Tigers
Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals
Los Angeles Angels
Los Angeles Dodgers
Miami Marlins
Milwaukee Brewers
Minnesota Twins *
New York Mets
New York Yankees
Oakland Athletics
Philadelphia Phillies
Pittsburgh Pirates
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants *
Seattle Mariners
St. Louis Cardinals
Tampa Bay Rays *
Texas Rangers
Toronto Blue Jays
Washington Nationals

San Francisco lost out to the New York football Giants.

Twins.com is owned by Durland & Darvin Miller. One page landing site.

Rays.com is owned by a cafe in Seattle. See the Tampa Bay team was the Devil Rays and changed to just Rays a few years back. Tampa Bay does own DevilRays.com.

In our next post we will look at the two most popular sports leagues in the U.S. The NBA and the NFL.