Do the company’s naming rights plans expand beyond the Verizon Center?
Earlier this week I broke the news that Capital One registered domain names suggesting it is buying the naming rights to what is now the Verizon Center in Washington DC.
Now the company has registered domain names suggesting it has grander plans for stadium naming in Washington, D.C. — but I caution that it could also just be part of a defensive domain registration strategy.
Here are the domains it registered:
cap1park.com
cap1stadium.com
capital1park.com
capital1stadium.com
capitalone-park.com
capitalone-stadium.com
capitalonepark.com
capitaloneparkdc.com
capitalonestadium.com
capitalonestadiumdc.com
caponepark.com
caponestadium.com
It would be very bold to go after two naming rights deals in the same city, but you have to admit that it’s pretty clever for Capital One to sponsor sports complexes in the capital.
Naming rights to Nationals Park, where the MLB Nationals play, are apparently up for grabs. It could also be RFK stadium, where D.C. United of Major League Soccer play.
Again, these domain registrations could just be a defensive move on the part of Capital One after I broke the news about the arena naming. We’ll have to see.
Michael Anthony Castello says
What IS obvious is that they are sticking with dot com.
John says
Michael, it’s almost as if people don’t even need to say it anymore, though it’s good to remind. I suspected the new gTLDs would really only enhance the value of .com rather than the opposite, even without the flawed way in which they have been released. It’s just like how a vast multitude of people and things in the same generic category only enhances the greatest exceptions. There are many rocks and stones in the world, but not as many nuggets of gold and gemstones. And that is what has occurred despite any temporary ripple of shock, uncertainly and turbulence resulting from the new TLDs.
I have written elsewhere how many years ago a young wunderkind friend of mine who went to Harvard Law and is now a big hotshot Wall Street CFO once told me he believed domain names would become extremely diluted because of how “infinitely expandable” the TLD space is, long before the avalanche of new TLDs were even a realistically contemplated possibility. What I refer to as the flawed “money grab” and a rather consumer-unfriendly model by which they have been introduced has more or less killed any possibility that could even have been the case, however. And this model was simply imposed upon the registries, they are not even to blame for it at all.
I do feel that Joseph also put it extremely interestingly and well over here, however, and his “Louisiana Purchase” analogy is really great: https://onlinedomain.com/2017/05/04/domain-name-news/wishful-thinking-will-not-change-domain-names-used/#comment-184613. He makes a great point there.
With .com, It’s like how great brand names have become genericized. Even now I’m a bit amazed and was not even aware of the extent of that phenomenon for certain words I have always assumed were regular words: http://www.businessinsider.com/trademarked-brands-that-everyone-uses-as-generic-names-2012-6.
.Com is simply synonymous in people’s minds with the Internet, World Wide Web, and ecommerce, this we know. And while it is so easy for us to completely forget how truly “cool” the very term “.com” itself is because of our extreme familiarity with it, the bottom line is that it still registers somewhere in the human psyche as epitomizing that “x factor” of essential “coolness” and appeal. I remember once watching a televised Peter Frampton concert. When it came time for him to gush about the members of his group, he pointed out how his young drummer had made it big with “one of those ‘.com’s’…” Rather telling indeed.
This firmly established “.com” psychology is also what I used to see before in traffic stats as an end user, when SE’s used to allow you to see every search, which I have also written about before. It is also one of the reasons why even the truly best long and super long domain names are worth relative fortunes big and small in addition to the obvious best of the short, and in many cases even much more for a multitude of them than the short. People not only search for the truly best natural top-of-mind phrases no matter how long they are, but much more than that they literally include “.com” in their search as well, even separated with spaces as an essential appended concept in their search – because of the above.
As Joseph pointed out so well, however, there is certainly still room for the great Westward expansion of the new. They do not threaten .com at all. They even demonstrate the value of .com rather than the opposite. It’s not and doesn’t have to be an “either/or” world, but is “both/and.” As with any herd, some are stallions, and most are not. For instance, as I have also written many times, I happen to like .gold, and feel that it could be quite appealing a large scale for a broad diversity of uses beyond the obvious, but the pricing model by which it has been released has more oe less completely killed its potential in that regard. I also like a few others, especially a few of the geo’s. And before all of this, however, I still maintain my conviction about the “sleeping giant” nature of .US that never had to be that way and doesn’t have to still.
But without doubt, the safest thing to be doing right now as an end user is to prioritize the .com. That is certainly what I have been doing.
Michael Anthony Castello says
I agree with you John. Words are in people’s minds. Dot com allows you to own a piece of that mind. The owner of a generic domain name, like Daycare.com, has the power to redefine what that word means in a global capacity. Perfect organic consumerism. It simply works on so many levels.
While the party for this article has already expired. The real information is here for those who wait for it. Alchemy
EV Domains (@evdomains) says
If one day they or anyone else decide to start an EV(Electric Vehicle) business/dealership in our Capital…well CapitalEV.com may come handy.
John says
Andrew, are you trying to milk your recent mention in the WP for a double?
John says
Lol, it blocked my angle brackets. I had “popeye laugh” in angle brackets after the above, but now it has ruined my comedic timing and effect. :'(
(popeye laugh)