Dallas Cowboys Forget to Renew Team Web Site

AP

Dallas Cowboys

As if Sunday wasn’t bad enough, as 19.4 million people watched the Dallas Cowboys get blown out by the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Night Football, there was a behind-the-scenes scramble in the early morning hours that day to make sure the team renewed the registration of its Web site.

The site, DallasCowboys.com, actually expired on Tuesday, according to domain search records, but the site wasn’t offered for sale by domain host Network Solutions until Sunday.

When that happened, Cowboys officials scrambled to re-register the site, which was first reserved in November 1995.

Because of the snafu, the site was down for much of the morning yesterday, as word circulated that the 1-7 team was letting its head coach Wade Phillips go.

“Everything was cleared up as soon as we became aware of the problem Sunday morning,” Cowboys spokesman Brett Daniels told CNBC.

“It takes about 24 hours for everything to get processed and servers updated across the country. By yesterday afternoon or evening anyone trying to access the site should have been able to.”

While it seems like the Cowboys avoided the disaster, it’s likely they would have gotten the rights back from an opportunist if he or she tried to sell the site for big bucks. The team has previously worked with the World Intellectual Property Organization to get domain names that use the Cowboys name under its control.

For what it’s worth, Daniels told CNBC that the site, which costs $9.99 a year, will now be on auto-renew, so the team doesn’t have to worry about this situation again. It's highly likely the fee won't make much of a dent on Jerry Jones' credit card bill.

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