How much would it cost to get the real estate people to drop "MLS"

To quote one of my favorite characters in fiction: Well more than you can imagine!

 

I don't know. Maybe the footballers can stop their football thing and start selling real estate. Many of them are pretty personable.

 

I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit.

 

To keep on this fiction trend.

"You don't buy me out, I buy you out."

 

$4,800,000

 

The Multiple Listing Service won't change their name. Major League Soccer isn't any more likely to get that than if a league called itself the National Rugby Association (same name format as the NBA) and wanted the National Rifle Association to change its name.

 

but then they'd have to fight a K-Pop band for that acronym... BTW, surely Bud Adidas Premiership?

 

In 1993 most companies didn't care about the .com domain name.

 

Exactly. Clinton's quote about "when I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard about the internet" might explain why MLS wasn't worried about competition for a web domain. I would guess the metro listing service didn't have it either. Itcould have gone unclaimed for another couple years. Remember the mid to late mid 90s it was still a legit business model to buy up domain names of massive companies that hadn't jumped online yet?
I can't find web numbers going back any further than 1995, when, worldwide, there were only 16 million netizens and .mil, .gov and .edu were the addresses that mattered, but I think it's safe to say that it usage was significantly lower than what would now be considered nonexistant.
I remember in 1994 we had a research program set up to study the future of the digital world (wasn't called that yet) and my old boss confidently concluded, "the internet is a fad."

 

I know somebody who owned budweiser.com, guinness.com and beer.com. He got a year's supply of Bud, a trip to Dublin for a tour of the Guinness brewery, and 6 figures out of those 3 domains.

 

I know it sounds crazy stupid to younger people who grew up with the internet, but it was not then what it is now. I remember the debate: will the world wide web be, basically, the new CB radio?
Very, very few people back then had a clue of what it was to become, and we know it was very few because they're all now multi-billionaires.

 

The original MLS domain, mlsnet.com, was registered 12/29/1997. That's after the league had played two seasons. Somebody can correct me if they had a website at a different domain before that.

I remember that the San Jose Clash's first official website was created voluntarily by a fan, hosted on his dial-up ISP's web hosting service, with a URL something like www. something. net/~clash. (Spaces added to avoid creating a fake link.)

 

The Rapids hosted their own forums on their website back in the late 90's, before BigSoccer started and everyone transitioned here. I actually moderated one of the forums there. I also was (and still am) friends with their original webmaster they contracted to build and run the site, even to the point of him "sub-contracting" to me a couple of site updates while he was on vacation (mainly just scores and standings updates).

 

Over 100 years after it started, when MLB made a website, they were www.majorleaguebaseball (.com not to create a link) because www.mlb (.com not to create a link). I'm guessing the Multiple Listing Service is more well known than whoever had www.mlb (.com not to create a link) back then.

The New York Knicks bought a domain (I don't remember what it was) that some people would type in guessing it would be for the Brooklyn Nets, and the Knicks redirected it to the Knicks website. That was years ago, and they may have stopped.

 

We're also glossing over the fact that the multiple listing service actually represents a $15 trillion industry. The only reason they might relinquish their established domain cheaply would be if they decided, you know, location isn't such a big deal after all.

 

What is this internet thing that you guys are talking about?

 

"multiple listing service"
About 42,800,000 results (0.55 seconds)

"major league soccer"
About 33,300,000 results (1.15 seconds)

Thaaaa listers win!