Some have wondered if there are other explanations. I thought about this while constructing the original post, but I neglected to write about why I ruled out some of these possibilities. It could be that the Crew reserved the domains without intending to use them. I can think of two reasons for this. The first is brand protection and the second is to hedge against a (future) decision.
The first theory involves a common PR tactic of buying of domain names that are related to your brand. This may be variations of your brand name, misspellings, or possible parody names. This prevents other people from securing those domains and setting up websites that benefit in some way from their relation to your brand. A nefarious case may involve spoofing a genuine website to defraud visitors.
The second theory is involves an organization anticipating a name change or a new product and reserving as many possible names. This does two things. First, it does all the legwork of acquiring the name ahead of time so that when the organization decides it has the domain in hand. Second, it prevents people from doing what I've done and inferring the name ahead of time.
I do not think either of these are the case. The reason is that Whois queries for variations of "columbuscrew" with things like "fc" or "96" turn up empty or reserved by others. Given "columbuscrewsc", these seem the most likely alternatives. Even less plausible additions like "sporting" or "real" turn up empty as well.
Here is a sample of unreserved names:
- columbuscrew96.com
- crew96.com
- columbuscrewfc.com
- columbuscrewfc.us
- columbuscrewfc.org
- crewfc.com
- realcolumbuscrew.com
- sportingcolumbus.com
- sportingcolumbuscrew.com
Here is a sample of names reserved by others:
- columbus96.com
- columbusfc.com
- realcolumbus.com
If either theory was correct, I would expect that the Crew would have reserved these domains as well.
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