Dana White, the head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a promotion company that holds popular MMA fights, said one of his first business mistakes was that he underestimated the importance of domain names. In an interview on the TV show of the Las Vegas Raiders, a member club of the US National Football League, he told host Kristine Leahy a curious story related to the domain industry, The Domains reports.
When the UFC tournaments began gaining popularity, the company considered registering a domain and creating a website. But it turned out that the domain UFC.com already existed and was owned by a little-known computer company, User Friendly Computers. Dana White offered to buy the domain, but was outraged by its price of $15,000. He said he was shocked that a domain could cost that much.
The negotiations failed, but soon White realized that he would have to buy the domain: the UFC tournaments were too popular to use any other domain besides UFC.com. Unfortunately for White, the domain owner realized that all too well. UFC had to pay four times more than the initial sum. Dana White did not reveal the exact amount, but said that they paid from $50,000 to $75,000.
