According to this story on DomainNameWire.com, Manny Ramirez is going to UDRP aribitration to try to get back the expired domain MannyRamirez.com.

The backround appears to be that Manny switched agents a few years ago, but the intellectual property didn't go with him, and expired. The domain was then registered by a third party.

UDRP is an expensive way to try to get a domain back, and it doesn't always work. When are agents and players going to start taking their intangible assets seriously?

Avantla.COM provides tools and services to help avoid precisely this type of situation. Athletes and agents can have detailed tracking of all intellectual property including domains, social media accounts, websites, blogs, etc.

The NFL Players association recently bought the domain for $25,000 according to DomainNewsWire.com

You may recall last year's lawsuit in which NBA player Chris Bosh was awarded nearly 800 "athlete" domain names from a cybersquatter.

The award was about 4 months ago. So what happened to those domain names?

Well, I ran some internet tools against the published list of domains and can came up with these interesting statistics:

• There were originally 754 domain names awarded. I extracted the names out of this PDF document.
   
• Chris Bosh's company, Max Deal Technologies, and his lawfirm, Winston & Strawn LLP, still appear to have 596 domains registered.
   
• Only about 26 domains were transferred to someone else. These are domains like SteveNash.com and ScarlettJohanssonReynolds.com. This means that, as far as I can tell, only about 3.4% of the names have been returned the rightful owner.
   
• The remaining 162 were just "dropped". They're expired and unregistered. The domains are either of little ...

read more

I posted this as "guest contributor" over on SportsAgentBlog.com.

As part of a recent lawsuit by NBA player Chris Bosh, about 800 domain names related to sports Athlete's have been free from a cyber-squatter. Chris Bosh appears to have been granted the domains by the Judge, as part of the settlement for "the violation of Bosh's rights under the Federal Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act."

According to a press release, Chris Bosh's company is offering to return the domains to their rightful owners, but will keep them registered in the meantime. A "written request from an authorized person" is required to retrieve the domain name, but hopefully this is a chance for some athlete's to retake control of their online brand.

The entire list of domains can be found here.

Chris Bosh is a four-time NBA All-Star, and Olympic gold medalist.

Up and coming Tennis player, Melanie Oudin, gets kudos for registering her "brand" as a domain two years ago... That is a good first step for stomping out the cybersquatting.

The good:

• Melanie has a fan page and a fan club on Facebook that look pretty "official".
  
• Melanie's mySpace page looks valid.

Unfortunately, it's hard to keep up with the squatters:

• Melanie's twitter page is squatted (sex ads): http://twitter.com/melanieoudin
  
• With a last name that is a little difficult to pronounce, it's is always recommended to get the simple typos like: melanieodin.com (available today).
  
• Oudin.com is, of course, registered (not squatted). This one looks very unlikely to be acquired in the future, because there seems to be a valid business there.

Its difficult for agents and business managers to keep up with all the nuances of internet branding. Especially early in an ...

read more

As reported on DomainNameWire, Cleveland Brown Quarterback Brady Quinn recently failed to win the domain BradyQuinn.com in UDRP arbitration. (NOTE: UDRP is a legal process for disputing domain names).

Some interesting points to take from all this:

• Before the NFL, Quinn had scholarship top play at Notre Dame, but didn't acquire his domain. It is much less expensive for athletes to acquire their intellectual property early in their careers -- to avoid the high legal costs.
  
  
• Quinn's FaceBook page is squatted.
  
  
• Quinn's Twitter site is unofficial (probably squatted).