POMPANO BEACH, Fla., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Moniker.com, the first and only provider of Domain Asset Management(TM) services, has been granted exclusive rights to broker the sale of FantasySports.com, which is currently owned by iTV Entertainment, LLC (iTVE). The domain and its portfolio of Intellectual Property will hit the auction block during Moniker's online, silent auction at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East. The current starting bid is $11.8 million U.S.
Moniker's online, silent auction at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East begins Friday, October 12 and ends Thursday, October 18. Moniker's live auction at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East 2007 will take place in Hollywood Beach, Fla. at the Westin Diplomat Resort on October 12, 2007 beginning at 2 p.m. E.T.
Along with the domain name FantasySports.com, iTVE's Intellectual Property portfolio includes the buyers' exclusive right to participate in iTVE's Right To Use Interests in eight issued and ten pending U.S. and foreign patents that involve substantial interactive television fantasy sports and gaming rights. Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 6,193,610, Interactive Television System and Methodology, has three of the most basic elements of interactive TV games while the pending Interactive System patent, U.S. Patent Application No. 09/428,991, involves the aggregation of all fantasy sports content into one standard platform for delivery onto interactive television and other video devices.
U.S. Issued Patents: U.S. Patents Pending
-- Patent No. 5,846,132 -- U.S. Patent Application No. 09/428,991
-- Patent No. 5,860,862 -- U.S. Patent Application No. 10/234,277
-- Patent No. 6,193,610 -- U.S. Patent Application No. 10/234,345
-- Patent No. 4,918,603 -- U.S. Patent Application No. 10,234,346
-- Patent No. 5,018,736 -- U.S. Patent Application No. 10,234,725
-- Patent No. 5,263,723 -- U.S. Patent Application No. 10,234,726
-- Patent No. 5,971,854 -- U.S. Patent Application No. 10,234,869
-- Patent No. 7,001,279 -- U.S. Patent Application No. 10,234,906
-- U.S. Patent Application No. 10,234,986
Foreign Patents Issued -- U.S. Patent Application No. 075630-0012
-- Australian Patent No. 636,411
-- Canadian Patent No. 2,044,266
-- Japanese Patent No. 2627,817
-- Korean Patent No. 101,731
FantasySports.com already has prominent organic search results, ranked as the second search result when searching Google for "fantasy sports" and fifth using the Yahoo Web search engine.
"The fantasy sports industry is a rapidly growing segment of the Web," said Monte Cahn, co-founder and CEO of Moniker.com. "TIME Inc and its Sports Illustrated Group purchased FanNation.com in February 2007 along with minority stake in FanNation's parent company, Sports Technologies Inc., for an estimated $ 20 million U.S. This underscores that Web properties related to fantasy sports are of significant interest to investors."
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) recently reported that the industry continues to grow as 19.4 million people are now actively playing in the U.S. and Canada. It is estimated there are about 30 million fantasy sports participants worldwide spending nearly $3 billion a year.
"FantasySports.com defines the industry and can easily be re-launched to become a variety of online destinations, including a fantasy sports news aggregation platform," said Patrick Hughes, president and chief executive officer of iTV Entertainment, LLC. "The purchaser of this domain and its respective Intellectual Property will have the opportunity to develop the 'MySpace of Fantasy Sports,' making it a global destination where fantasy sports participants can be aggregated into a single community of interest. The options for development are limitless."
Moniker Adds Additional Premium Domains to the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Auction Block
Moniker also announced the Live Domain Auction inventory and the addition of several premier domains to the auction block at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East:
-- Investement.com
-- Poker.mobi
-- Cowboys.com
-- Copiers.com
-- Elections.com
-- Ethanol.com
-- Kuwait.com
-- ScienceFiction.com
-- SportingGoods.com
These domains join previously announced domains, including WallStreet.com, Taxes.com and Computer.com. For more information on all the names for sale in the Live auction, please visit http://marketplacepro.moniker.com/auction/detail.html?auction_id=181.
Registered attendees of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East 2007 are automatically eligible to take part in the live bidding. Single-day access to the event is also available. The event runs October 9-13, 2007 and is by invitation only. To request an invitation or to learn more about the conference, visit http://www.targetedtraffic.com/.
Moniker will also be offering absentee and telephone proxy bidding for individuals who are unable to attend the event. Those interested in learning more about this process should visit http://marketplacepro.moniker.com/auction/detail.html?auction_id=181.
Domain Financing on Site and After
Moniker, along with its partner Domain Capital, will offer domain financing to leverage domain purchases made at this event or for other transactions. Moniker and Domain Capital have been pioneering the same concept for virtual real-estate for years in a fashion similar to real estate mortgage financing.
About iTV Entertainment, LLC
iTV Entertainment, LLC was formed by the merger of its two predecessor companies, Fantasy Sports Properties, Inc. (FSPI) and FantaSports in 2001 upon the simultaneous sale of their patent and IP portfolios to Gemstar-TV Guide, International, Inc. FSPI is the fantasy sports industry's longest running operator of fantasy sports games, It was the original "fantasy" category licensee of both the National Football League and NFL Players Association, had endorsements from John Madden, Terry Bradshaw and Cal Ripken, Jr. and co- developed the first interactive fantasy football games for Miller Brewing Co. and Fox Sports.
About T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Presented by the World Association of Domain Name Developers, Inc. (WADND), T.R.A.F.F.I.C. is the domain industry's premier conference. Three times per year T.R.A.F.F.I.C. (Targeted Redirects and Financial Fulfillment Internet Conference) brings together domain owners, search engine companies, leading registrars, pay-per-click aggregators, sponsors, Wall Street investors, the banking, financial and advertising communities as well as analysts, developers and experts on targeted traffic. An invitation-only event, conference attendees collectively control over 10 million domain names and host tens of millions of unique visitors to their websites every day. The Internet's biggest companies support and participate in T.R.A.F.F.I.C., including Google, Yahoo!, Sedo.com, Moniker.com, Marchex, TrafficZ, Fabulous.com, DomainSponsor.com and many others. Legendary "domain king" Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu, a prominent Intellectual Property attorney and former three-term mayor of North Miami, Florida co-founded and manage the event through their company, the World Association of Domain Name Developers, Inc. (WADND). Corporate headquarters are located at 1152 N. University Drive, Suite 201, Pembroke Pines, Florida, 33024. For more information, send email to admin@targetedtraffic.com or visit us at www.targetedtraffic.com.
About Moniker
Moniker is the first and only provider of Domain Asset Management(TM), a complete set of business services that provide companies a single-point-of- access to help manage and maximize the value of their domains. These services include name creation, registration, acquisition, portfolio management, appraisal and escrow services, traffic monetization and after-market sales -- all backed by unsurpassed customer service and security.
With more than a decade of experience, Moniker is a top 10 domain registrar, holds the industry's highest customer retention rate and pioneered the industry's first domain appraisal formula. It is considered the industry's premier marketplace to buy and sell domain names.
Customers include savvy investors, Web entrepreneurs and forward-thinking global companies, including Marchex, Nokta, Future Media Architects, AOL, Yahoo, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, Lions Gate Films, Bank of America, Microsoft, Jupitermedia, Geosigns, Mainstream Advertising and many others.
Moniker, with headquarters in Pompano Beach, Florida, is an operating unit of Seevast Corporation, a company of marketing services firms that drive sales, build brands and leverage core assets for their clients.
Website: http://www.moniker.com/
Website: http://www.targetedtraffic.com/