Saturday, November 05, 2005
“Fans' rant sites rankle as many as they amuse”
Found a story today (by Terry Hutchens of IndyStar.com) talking about a company that has set up a site selling domains that call for the dismissal of several college football coaches. At redshirted.com, Nebraska followers can buy the FireBillCallahan.com domain for $250, while a similar url for Iowa's Kirk Ferentz is running $150. For $100 you could have addresses for Virginia's Al Groh, Washington State's Bill Doba or Kansas' Mark Mangino. The hatchet already has fallen on former Indiana coach Gerry DiNardo, but you still may purchase that domain for $100. Or, for the bargain basement price of $50, you could own FireTerryHoeppner.com.
This is not an entirely new idea, Google any current coach, and odds are you'll come across ones just like http://www.firetiller.com/ -- where disgruntled Purdue fans go to bash Joe Tiller. There are also numerous domains for sites named YankeesSuck.com or RepublicansSuck.com etc. but I found the idea unique in that these “fire” domains actually call for an action. A step up perhaps or would a step down be more descriptive of the trend? Those that don’t agree with the suggested firings, tend to get pretty upset about these sites, but Former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie said he doesn't understand the fuss. "If you're in this profession and you let something like that bother you, you're too thin-skinned,'' Davie said. "I look at it more of being an entertainment thing and almost like a tongue-in-cheek thing sometimes.'' Supporters of the current coaches are now taking steps to buy these names as a defensive move (similar to the corporations). Firejimtressel.com was founded in support of the Ohio State coach. Open the site, and it reads, "Fire Jim Tressel? Are you NUTS? This domain is parked to keep it out of the hands of folks who shouldn't be trusted with kitchen utensils, let alone Web sites."
The names come with the one-time purchase fee and only cost around $10 per year to maintain. Cheaper than getting a megaphone for the game and more likely you’ll actually be heard too.