I read the Associated Press report today that said the NBA (National Basketball Association) has teamed up with FIBA to launch a European basketball league. Out of curiosity, I checked to see who owns NBAE.com, which I think would be the ideal domain name for a NBA Europe league website.

Whois records at DomainTools show the NBAE.com domain name is registered to the NBA via GoDaddy Corporate Domains.

Notably, this was a somewhat recent domain name acquisition. Prior to the NBA’s acquisition of the domain name, NBAE.com had been registered under Whois privacy for quite some time. Tellingly, the domain name had Sedo nameservers, so it was listed for sale on Sedo.

According to NameBio, NBAE.com sold for $9,500 via Sedo in August of last year.

Businesses and organizations don’t always think ahead when it comes to domain names. This can increase acquisition costs and potentially expose them to risk if domain names are registered by third parties. The NBA secured an important domain name should it expand to Europe under the NBA Europe banner, and securing NBAE.com for $9,500 was quite the deal.