Re golf itself, I am not sure that the many articles on the death of golf have not overstated the case. Yes, true fewer courses open today than 10 years ago in USA (not sure stats in rest of world). But even
in Canada alone there are just under 6 million active golfers who play at total of bout 60 million rounds of golf a year. By comparison the number of registered hockey players in Canada has been declining slightly from a peak a few years ago) of about 650,000. Yes some unregistered play pickup hockey but most estimates place the number playing hockey in Canada about 1/4 those who play golf.
For reasons mentioned, including cost and time commitment and the pull along effect of the Tiger Woods era that helped propel golf to new interest heights, golf has some challenges. Still it is a huge business. I think definitely room for growth in ways that make if faster and cheaper and more family oriented, which I suspect the new business model has to do with at least partly.
It is natural for us as domain investors to equate aftermarket sales to value of domain, but really when we say a domain is worthless, or less, it saying more. It was not hard to find a number of golf facilities using both .golf and .fun TLDs. So when real world operations use them, we should be careful of critical language in a public forum. Will most use .com or .org or their country code? Absolutely. Will all? no.
The very best of luck with 9time - it does seem to me that mixed number-letter domains are picking up in interest of late. I am hoping to dig out numbers to see if my hunch is supported by statistics.
This is superb advice from namedeck that we should all keep in mind every day! Thank you for the reminder to us all.
Bob
PS To those who say what does Bob really know about golf, I would like to share with you two pieces of personal trivia. I once played as a teen 83 holes of golf in one day, starting shortly after dawn and playing until dusk. That was not that unusual for me in my golf crazed teen years where I could cheaply play as much as I wanted for one low yearly fee on a national park course. Alas, I play almost no golf now. I have designed and personally built a 14 hole golf course (really true! but you would probably not recognize it as a golf course, and alas I no longer own it).[/QUOTE]
Thanks for commenting Bob, you said; "I think definitely room for growth in ways that make if faster and cheaper and more family oriented, which I suspect the new business model has to do with at least partly." Bob, great observations, and it pretty much has
everything to do with it. btw,
9Time.ca is available, and i intend to buy it, as are names like; 9Time.uk and 9Time.au where a lot of golf is played.
With regards to the number/letter combination, it's a real big deal to me because it's the #
9 that a lot of my business model references;
9 holes of golf, $
9 to walk
9 (i also own the domain 9Dollar9ine.com), $
9 to rent clubs, and because it's a new game, just
9 clubs allowed instead of the traditional 14 clubs allowed by the official rules.
Bob in reference to you playing 83 holes of golf in a single day
, the most I ever played in a day was 45 holes, however, a friend of mine wrote: "King of Clubs - The Great Golf Marathon of 1938" by Jim Ducibella, and I think you would really enjoy it.
Also, the first step of my TM application came via email electronically to sign today. I need to pay an additional $250, and I intend to complete it next week.
Finally, i'm forming an advisory board for 9Time, and i'll email you details in the next few days. btw, i really suck at golf, but I believe I have a little better track record when it comes to start-ups and names. Thanks again for commenting.