Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Bobcats And Domains

The Charlotte Bobcats finally brake into simple branding and into a simple web address.

The expansion team Charlotte Bobcats for the first three seasons were using a longer domain name and there official site could be found at www.bobcatsbasketball.com. The reason for this being that the owner of www.bobcats.com belonged to a Montana real bobcat breeder.

Barbara Roe owns Bitterroot Bobcat and Lynx in Stevensville, Mont., and had the rights to the Web site name for 10 years. She says team officials began asking her in 2004 about buying the rights, but the early offer of a couple thousand dollars wasn't enough. Roe says they have agreed to pay about $50,000. I believe for an NBA team $50,000 was still pretty low if you ask me, but if Barbara Roe is happy, and all the bobcat fans rather NBA teams or the real bobcats...let it be.

Roe now uses the domain name www.bobcatsmt.com.

Charlotte Bobcats president Fred Whitfield says the team is glad to have the rights.

The NBA team's new marketing campaign also includes the slogan "Elevate," new uniforms, simple SEO, and a new secondary logo.