EDITOR’S NOTE: When it was announced in July 2006 that a group of investors from Oklahoma City had purchased the Seattle Supersonics NBA franchise, everyone in OKC knew what that meant. The team would relocate to Oklahoma City sooner or later. Probably sooner. That happened in 2008. Sorry Seattle. I was working in The Oklahoman newsroom at the time as a Business News reporter, and hit upon the idea of buying some potential Internet domain names that the future OKC Sonics (we thought) might want. Then I could sell the rights to that domain name to the team owners for a nice profit. Buy low, sell high. It didn’t work out, but I did get a nice story out of my brief tenure as an Internet domain name squatter. It was published as a column in The Oklahoman back in 2006. And that was the sole purpose of buying a domain name. This is that story.
By Jim Stafford
Like a tsunami traveling across hundreds of miles of ocean, it didn’t take long for ripples from last week’s $350 million acquisition of the Seattle SuperSonics to wash into Oklahoma.
A group of Oklahoma businessmen now own the Sonics, and less than a day after the deal was announced another group of enterprising Oklahomans spotted opportunity in a possible relocation of the team to the Sooner State.
We huddled in The Oklahoman newsroom.
A colleague I’ll call “Don” suggested that we research available Internet domain names using such words “Oklahoma, OKC, Sonics and Super-Sonics.” We could pool our resources and buy up the most promising real estate.
“I’m in,” I told him. The new team owners will need some prime Internet real estate if they relocate to Oklahoma, and we wanted to own it when they got here.
So began a race not unlike the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, although the mode of transportation this time was a high-speed Internet connection. Using the domain broker GoDaddy.com, we did a search of virtually every combination of Oklahoma, OKC, Oklahoma City, Sonics and Super-Sonics.
Apparently, some Sooners had already anticipated the deal and staked out some virtual land before we got into the race. Names like oklahomasonics.com, okcsonics.com and sonicsokc.com were all gone. Even okiesonics.com was no longer available.
We settled on okc-sonics.com as the best of the unclaimed property. We formed a 50-50 partnership and sealed the deal through GoDaddy. Total investment: $9.40.
When word spread that a pair of Internet real estate moguls inhabited the newsroom, several of our colleagues began clamoring to join the investment group. They wanted in for $1 each, but Don and I decided the value already had risen beyond the original purchase price.
We decided to expand our investment empire the next day and claim another domain name. This time we went for sonics-okc.com. Another $9.40.
An editor who heard of our venture happened to wander by the business news desk. What were our intentions in owning these domain names, he inquired.
We’re not going to hold anybody up, we assured him. If the new owners of the Sonics want one of these domain names for the team’s Web site, we’ll demand nothing more than season tickets for each of us. And our spouses. On the floor. Plus parking.
The editor decided to play devil’s advocate. “Let me ask you this,” he said. “On whose computer and whose time did you make this deal?”
Gulp. The devil IS in the details.
Uh, we only took this move to assure the new Oklahoma owners that prime domain names will be available to them if they need it. Just kidding about the season tickets. HA! HA! We won’t really need to be on the floor anyway. And we can pay for our own parking.
Meanwhile, Don began looking for a possible exit strategy. He located the domain name auction site afternic.com where homesolutions.com recently brought a bid of $9,210. Therapy411.com reeled in a $2,000 bid.
Suddenly, new opportunities seem possible. We will wash our hands of this Sonics deal just as soon as our auction is over.
The auction won’t end until our reserve price is reached. We will set it just high enough to cover a pair of season tickets. Parking included.
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