• Bill Hartzer , Monday, October 22, 2007 1:30 PM

In a recent domain name auction by Moniker, the Dallas Cowboys NFL team "mistakenly" bid on cowboys.com -- thinking that the domain was being sold for $275. Days later, the organization wanted to overturn the deal, realizing too late that they'd won the domain name with a bid of $275,000. It seems that the football team didn't understand how much of a commodity domains are and how the right one can impact brand awareness -- not to mention new ticket sales and other revenue.

In the Dallas Cowboys' defense, the organization has decades worth of brand equity and an uber-loyal fan base -- so they may not need the exposure of a generic domain name like cowboys.com.

Still, Hartzer argues (as well as some of the commenters below the fold) that the new eyeballs that could be gained from redirecting users who'd entered "cowboys.com" into their search bar to "dallascowboys.com," and the relative owning of the term "cowboys" on the Web could have contributed greatly to future profits. Only time will tell if this was a fumble or a touchdown for the Dallas Cowboys.

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