Tuesday Talk - SportAccord Makes Case for Control of .Sport Domain

(ATR) SportAccord digital media manager Pierre Germeau tells Around the Rings administration of a presumptive .sport domain must not fall into the wrong hands.

The umbrella body for 107 international sports federations and organizations is among three applicants for the role as gatekeeper of sorts to anyone wanting a future web address that ends in .sport or .sports.

After a years-long push to allow for generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) outside the usual .com or .org, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will likely give one the go-ahead.

According to Germeau, ICANN’s only legitimate option is SportAccord.

Around the Rings: Broadly speaking, what does the introduction of new gTLDs mean for the internet of the future?

Pierre Germeau: It will really broaden the scope of the internet, and it will allow people across all industries and interests to have an extension that illustrates what they are doing, that illustrates their domain of activity.

For us, it’s great to have the opportunity to create an extension such as .sport because until now, as a club or as an athlete or as an event organizer, you could only choose between your country code domain name – but when you’re international, it’s not that great – or such extensions as .com, .net or .org, which do not really represent who you are.

In the future, you will be able to choose a .sport extension, which will really represent who you are and will give a unique opportunity to create an environment where people know if they go to a .sport related address, they will find relevant things about sports.

ATR: ICANN has received three applications for either .sport or .sports, but SportAccord’s is the only one seeking a "community designation". What does that mean?

PG: We have a great relationship with all our 107 members as well as the IOC, who fully supports us, so SportAccord really represents the sports community, and that’s why we’ve decided to go that path.

This will give us some constraint because as a community application, you are accountable to the community, but that’s exactly what we want to be, so that was really in line with our intentions, and that’s why we decided to take the community path.

ATR: How did last week’s ICANN meetings in Prague go, and what was your takeaway for SportAccord?

PG: The ICANN meetings were very interesting on different points.

First of all, for ICANN, it was a good opportunity to give some more information on the process of the applications, to give some explanation of how they are going to consider all the 1,900 extension applications.

It was also interesting for SportAccord because it gave us the opportunity to show the unity of the sports movement behind us and a great opportunity to inform ICANN, to inform industry stakeholders that SportAccord has the full support from all the federations as well as the IOC and that they are strongly involved in wanting to develop the .sport domain name in a very sound way.

ATR: When we spoke back in March, you mentioned that SportAccord’s application for .sport had support from the presidents or secretaries general of about 60 international federations. Has this number grown since then, and has their support been further formalized in any way?

PG: When we submitted the application, we received formal support from around 60 SportAccord members. Following our presentation of the .sport project at our General Assembly in May, we also received formal support from additional members, which was integrated into our submission and helped to strengthen our application.

ATR: How did the Policy Advisory Board meeting at SportAccord Convention in Quebec City go?

PG:It was a great opportunity to really start working on the charter of that Policy Advisory Board, so we now are ready to work because we know under which rules the Policy Advisory Board will work.

And again, it was really great to see that all the member federations were embracing and willingly to be actively involved in the initiative, so it was great.

ATR: Remind me of some of the IFs and other stakeholders that are represented on the Policy Advisory Board.

PG:IOC, ASOIF, UCI, FEI, FIBA, IKF/ARISF, FIQ, FIM, IFF, FISU, CMAS, FIE, WA, IPC, CIPS, and FIS

ATR: And remind me in what capacity your application for .sport boasts IOC support?

PG: The IOC is behind us, and they support what we do, so anytime we make a decision, we share that with them, and they follow us, and they will give us all the active support if need be.

And they are part of the Policy Advisory Board.

ATR: Have you been in contact with either of the other two applicants for .sport or .sports, and what do you know about the applicants?

PG: I had a contact with Donuts Inc., which is an applicant who applied for more than 300 different domain names, so it’s a company that has big investors behind them, obviously, because each application cost $200,000, so I’ll let you do the calculation.

They applied for .sports. They also applied for a few .disciplines, but they have no specific legitimacy in sports. They applied for 300+ domain names across all kinds of areas, and so if you look at the application, they don’t even mention sport, so we feel that they have an approach that is purely business-oriented, and their approach is not to protect the sports movement but more to sell as many .sport domain names as possible.

ATR: And what about the other applicant?

PG: The other applicant [Gibraltar-based Famous Four Media, who also applied for .basketball, .cricket, .football, .golf, .hockey, .rugby, .soccer and .tennis, among 50+ other gTLDs] was not present at ICANN, so we haven’t been in touch with them directly. It’s a small world, and our back-end providers may get in touch with them soon, or maybe it’s going to be us, but now we start a process of roughly seven months of evaluation, so there’s no hurry at the moment.

ATR: How confident is SportAccord at this stage?

PG: Again, we are the only ones who have legitimacy in sport. We are really united with our federations to obtain that, so we are quite confident that we will succeed in our application.

ATR: What’s the latest from ICANN as far as when they expect to start approving the new gTLDs?

PG: They will start the evaluation process now, but there is a seven-month objection period, so it’s unlikely that anything will be released and that any new domain name will enter into use before the end of 2013. We are going through a long process here.

ATR: Is there anything else I’m forgetting to ask or anything else you wanted to tell me?

PG: No, I think the message should really be a positive message to the sports industry to say that it would be a shame for .sport to fall into the hands of entities who are not involved in sports. We need to continue to be united behind our initiative, but that would be the message I would like to send, a positive message.

Interview conducted by Matthew Grayson

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