Through a freedom of information act, the UK press has discovered that The BBC (UK public broadcasting company) paid $375,000 (£212,000) for the BBC.com domain back in 1999 at the top of the domain name market. Previous estimates for the domain’s sale price were £20,000 to £200,000, according to The Register.
Why make a fuss about it? The BBC is funded by everyone in the UK that ones a TV.
So far BBC.com just forwards to BBC.co.uk, but it has a lot of potential–especially now that BBC has an American cousin. In addition to buying BBC.com, apparently the network challenged BBC.org’s owners to hand over that domain for free. They lost the challenge.
My take? $375,000 for BBC.com was not outrageous, especially since a legitimate company was using it for their business. That company had to change URLs, change e-mail addresses, etc., and probably confused its customers during that change. I can’t see someone doing that at a lower price. Off the top of my head, the only thing to compare this to was the sale of MLB.com from law firm Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius LLP to Major League Baseball in 2000. Unfortunately, the sale price for MLB.com was never announced. Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius also had a business relationship with Major League Baseball, so the sale price might not have been a “market” price.
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