Now We Know How Much NBC Paid For SyFy.com: $250K & The Story Behind It
In a new article published by the former owner of SYFY.com, the domain and brand NBC chose to replace the Sci Fi Network and Scifi.com, he tells the story of the negotiations between himself and NBC and confirms that the sales price was $250K.
And for all your domainers out there that think $250K was a pretty good price for a LLLL.com, the former owner, Michael Hinman, is not a happy guy:
“NBCU didn’t even have the balls to approach us themselves. They used a shell company called New Fizz Corp. to buy the SyFy Portal domain name.”
“$250,000…that’s right. That is what they paid us to sell our domain name and our brand. A quarter million dollars. How much of a budget hit was that to NBCU? Let’s spell it out again: $16,900,000,000 versus $250,000. That is 0.0014 percent of NBCU’s overall revenue for a brand that they are now using on a major property. If they had come to us as NBCU, they know that we would’ve looked at the $16,900,000,000 in revenue, and likely would’ve wanted to move the decimal point in the percentage of revenue to the right a few places. Even then, even if we had asked for $2.5 million for the brand and the domain name that we put so much of ourselves into, that would be just 0.014 percent of NBCU’s overall revenue for the year.”"
As domainers we know that many people and companies lie, when they try to acquire a domain.
It is rare they write you and say yes this is Google and we want to buy your domain for a major product rollout.
Instead the e-mail I get claim to be from students, recently divorce housewives, or recently fired people, all of which claim to have not a lot of money to spend.
I usually get the “that’s all the money I have in the world” line only to wind up with them magically coming up with several times more, to get the domain.
Bottom line, the buyer know who they are, and they know what they want the domain for, and you don’t.
I know a lot of you would have been happy taking $25K for SyFy.com.
I think Michael, with all due respect, your pricing expectations are not realistic.
First take the case of CNN, which I understand identified themselves as such, to one of the best negotiators on earth and wound up getting the domain for $750K.
In that case CNN started using ireport for months before even contacting the “Domain King“. At that point ireport.com was probably getting quite a bit of traffic which would only increase over time and the “King”, probably would have been happy with keeping the domain and traffic forever.
CNN which is owned by Time Warner, probably has higher revenue than NBC/Universal and its not really fair to judge the sale by the revenue of a huge conglomerate generates. In the ireport.com case, it certainly wouldn’t be reasonable to count in the revenues of say HBO into the equation, for the value of ireport to CNN. Likewise, why count the money Universal makes off of the USA network into figuring our what the revenue of the Sci Fi network is or a percentage of revenue.
Beyond that domains are not a reflection of a percentage of the buyers worth or revenue.
Michael, you need to look at recent sales of domains in the mulitmillion dollar range.
Toys.com $5.1 Million
Candy.com $3M
Auction.com $1.7M
Ad.com $1.4M
All of these domains sold this year.
Sorry Syfy.com doesn’t compare to any of these.
While I agree domains are undervalued and the Buyers of these top domains Should be paying more and the domains are worth much more than they went for, its what in fact quality domain are going for.
SyFy.com other problem is who was the other buyer?
Other than this project NBCU had, who else on earth would have paid $250K for this domain?
If NBCU backed off and went in another direction, then you would have walked away with no sale.
Sciencefiction.com was offered at DomainFest.com this past January with a reserve of $150K.
That’s a domain NBCU could have bought for less than they paid for syfy.com.
So in my opinion Michael you should sleep well at night, having made a good deal on a domain.
Michael, welcome to our world, were we get offers everyday from people, unknown to us.
Sometimes they identify themselves but most times the e-mail comes from a gmail or hotmail or other ISP account and the buyer doesn’t identify themselves at all.
Many times we turn down offers never to ever get another one as good as the one we turned down.
Other times we find the domain we sold to that college student for a small project, has gone to a major corporation to be rollout as a huge project.
Other times we get a UDRP where that major corporation tries to take away our property without having to pay us one cent for it.
Yes Michael welcome to our world.
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To clarify …
you sold syfyportal.com ( and some intellectual property) which received 8 million highly targeted unique visitors a year for $250,000
If I’m wrong please correct me.
MHB:
I don’t understand your rudeness about this. There is no need to be rude, and it’s really OK to make a mistake or two. Breathe … breathe.
People make mistakes all the time. There is no need to be defensive about it or to start lobbing grenades. I made it clear that the entire situation is very complex, and that the writer (who I guess has now been identified as you based on your post) should not be blamed. I didn’t come in complaining, but wanted to make sure that the record was set straight, since there seemed to be a lot of confusion about this, and a lot of comments based on inaccurate information.
I sold an unregistered trademark, but it’s STILL a trademark. The only difference between an unregistered trademark and a registered one is that the latter is far easier to use to fight infringement than the former.
So now that that’s squared away …
In terms of clarity, in the quote you provide in your response, I said very specifically, “$250,000 … that’s right. that is what they paid us to sell our domain name and our brand.”
How much more clear can that be? A “brand” is the same as a trademark. They are interchangeable. That alone should’ve been the first indication that this was more than a domain name sale, as it was characterized on here.
I’m sorry, but I was being VERY nice about the need for a correction, and I don’t think that such a request required such a response. I did not attack you at all, but instead, you attacked me.
So if you want to play it that way, MHB, you are burying yourself because your single post lone shows that I made it clear it was NOT just a domain name sale.
Also, if you read the original column, there is never a single mention of Syfy.com. That, again, was a leap you made. That would be like when I merged my site with Star Trek Portal, that you would write something announcing to everyone that I acquired the rights to the Star Trek name.
Just because I don’t own or control every usage of a trademark out there does not mean that I necessarily do not own the trademark. And just because I have a trademark does not necessarily mean that I own all the uses.
In terms of Syfy.com, they were allowed to continue using the name because we took efforts to establish our ownership of the mark, and allowed them a de facto license to continue using it, simply by providing a disclaimer and a link to our site.
My goal at that time, with the limited financial resources I had, was to 1) Make sure there was no confusion between that site and my site; and 2) Make it clear that they were using a name we owned, and that they would acknowledge as much by being the ones to provide a disclaimer AND linking back to us. SyFy World did not carry any type of reciprocal disclaimer.
I am not sure how to explain it any better than I did there. Since the original rebranding, and later revealed sale of the branding, was covered heavily in March, there is plenty of material available in a news clip search that would’ve generated the details of what was sold and what was NOT sold, including Syfy president Dave Howe’s claims about syfy.com and the fact that I did not own it, and our subsequent response to that, which was never rebutted (because, really, you can’t rebut it).
The original story was clear to our readers, which is the audience I was trying to reach. Our readers are a loyal bunch of people, and many have been visiting us for many years, a few from almost the very beginning 11 years ago. The story has been rehashed so many times on our site, actually, that there are a few tired of hearing about it, or hearing all the history to just get to the new parts.
Typically, if someone picks up on the story, and they are new to all of it, it’s very easy to send me an e-mail, like you did — except BEFORE you publish it. I would’ve been happy to provide any comments or answer any questions that you ask. It’s very rare that I turn down any media requests, because I hate it when people do it to me, I want to make sure that only accurate information is being printed because it’s real hard to get it corrected after the fact, and I am a media whore. =P (the second part might be a joke, lol)
Waiting maybe two hours to write me some questions, or to ask to call me, and getting answers to different parts probably would’ve made this far more clear.
I am one of the most accessible Web business people you will find. You know that — you e-mailed me. If Leonard Nimoy can find my phone number out of nowhere — and my cell phone no less — I’m sure you could, too (or you could ask for it).
So instead of blasting me about the “clarity” of a story that is intended for our readers, maybe you need to think a little bit about how you could’ve avoided the factual errors in the story.
I’m verbose, because I talk fast and think a lot. And I know that sometimes, points and facts can be lost — but I am always available to provide details about it, even in “deadline” situations where you need to get something up.
And if you wish to write about the unregistered trademark issue, great! Please do! I’m sure you have an opinion about it that is different than mine, but that’s OK. If the world agreed with me, it would be a boring place.
Just please be factual and fair, and if you have questions you wish to ask of me, as long as you promise to at least give me a fair shake, I would be more than happy to answer them. You know my e-mail, and if you would like my phone number, e-mail me the request, and I will get it to you and times I’m available to talk by phone.
Thanks!
Alan:
I never used the term “highly targeted.” That term has a specific meaning, which I don’t know the full definition of, and I would prefer not to use such a specific term — even if it might be true — without being comfortable that what I would be sharing is accurate.
The number I provided is just “unique visitors,” and some of those numbers are based on illegal copies of stories we publish on other sides. So the proper terminology I should probably use is “unique readers” rather than visitors, although the number of off-site reading is only a small fraction of our total visitorship, and I tend to use more simplistic terms.
Michael Hinman,
curious – if you did not sell it would you happen to know how much syfy.com sold for?
Alan, I don’t have first hand knowledge of how much syfy.com sold for, but I was told it was for less than $10,000 … in the $5,000 to $7,000 range.
so you sold an unregistered TM (in your opinion) that did not include the domain name (which predates your usage as well) for 1/4 million and you’re bitching about it afterward?
NBC applied for all sorts of REAL TM’s for SyFy earlier this year and they graciously paid you off… so what if it was through a shell company, you did well.
What people are reacting to here is your obvious bitterness after the sale that you negotiated. While you may have control over your own forum, the opinion from the rest of the universe is not likely to be as skewed…
Cartoonz:
You are incorrect.
I sold a trademark (and it’s stated as such in the sales agreement … it’s not “my opinion”) that included a domain name.
The Syfy.com purchase did NOT predate my usage. Syfy.com was purchased in 2000. SyFy World launched in August 1998. By the time Syfy.com was going, we were already nearly two years old, and had had our first big break.
And yes, I am complaining about the fact that they are trying to claim they created something that they did not create. It’s not true, and it spits in the face of the person who DID create it.
I kind of liken it to someone who builds a house from his two bare hands, and spends a lot of money and time on it, to make it some hugely unique house. It’s not well-known, except in the little town that it was built in.
Donald Trump decides that he would like to have a unique house, and is thinking about building one when he happens to hear about this unique house that the guy built.
He comes in and offers the guy some money, and buys the house. Then, as soon as he does it, the fact that Trump is involved gets national and international media attention, and suddenly the house is famous and Trump is selling tour tickets for $50 a pop.
When he’s asked by Matt Lauer about the history of the house, Trump said, “Yep, I built it.”
Do you think that’s accurate? Do you think that the person who actually built it, and sold it for what it was valued at before Trump got a hold of it, should at least have the right to be credited for his work?
Let’s say you sell people.com. Would you be happy if I stepped in and claimed I was the one who brokered the deal, when it was actually you?
I’m hoping you would be upset about it, and that is what I am upset about.
Yes, the bitterness I feel is over claims that they created the name, and I don’t even exist — something that could potentially be a violation of said deal. And because they chose to make this potential violation in the public eye, it should be responded and refuted in the public eye.
Not much more to it than that.
I know how people feel about things. That is one reason why I shared the selling price, which was NEVER a secret (I simply decided not to release it) was because some people who felt that I was speaking out against something felt that I received far more money than I actually received, some to the point that I was ONLY supporting the rebranding of Syfy by NBCU because the conglomerate bought that support.
The idea was to show that they did not buy it, and they really didn’t spend too much on anything else.
it’s also to show I’m not asking for much. When you count a brand sale, which is far different from a domain sale, you see a lot more money exchanging, especially if the brand is going to be used at the scale it is here. If they had represented themselves properly, the sales price would’ve been closer to $2.5 million, not $250,000, which would be the most appropriate way to go.
I completely understand why people here (or in other places) would react the way they did, and I have no issue with that at all. If I’m being bitchy about the sales price, and that’s what people want to hone in on, then I need to get better about keeping the focus on the true goal of mine: To make sure that no one else can claim credit for probably the only thing I have a chance to be known for.
What people are reacting to here is your obvious bitterness after the sale that you negotiated. While you may have control over your own forum, the opinion from the rest of the universe is not likely to be as skewed…
I work for Universal/NBC. First of all they are very big, owned by General Electric. You got a very fair price. Lucky to get that. SYFY will have to be branded on their part. Not even the right spelling.
They don’t need you. You need them.
Michael (hilman)
I’m pretty sure there some polish science fiction jokes long before 1998
http://www.thewrap.com/blog-entry/2136
peace
“If they had represented themselves properly, the sales price would’ve been closer to $2.5 million, not $250,000, which would be the most appropriate way to go.”
That is what everyone here is focusing on, exactly. It doesn’t matter who you did the deal with, the fact is that you cut the deal that you were willing to accept.
Now, you are crying that it wasn’t enough and that somehow it would have been 10x the amount you had already accepted SOLELY because of who the buyer is? Sour grapes. If you’re that upset about it, perhaps you should look in the mirror as you were the one that accepted 250k. Exactly who did you think was spending that kind of money? Wasn’t it obvious who it likely really was at that point? If it wasn’t, you must not have really looked at the deal very objectively at the time.
But the bottom line is that you negotiated and closed on a price that was obviously acceptable to you. You can’t go back later and cry foul because the buyer didn’t tell you they had more money than you supposed they had. That makes no sense. You accepted the deal. You even gave them the price, according to your statements. They accepted YOUR OFFER to sell at that price. Again, whining now that it somehow wasn’t fair just seems silly
As for your dismay over creative credit, the term SyFy arguably predated your use of it by many accounts anyway. The domain name SyFy.com was registered by a different party as early as 1999.
NBC-Universal is claiming credit of re branding its own platform to SyFy solely because SciFi is a generic term and indistinguishable. Their use of the SyFy mark and reason for changing to that term is completely different than what you claimed common law rights to, so yes they did create their own branding and rightfully so. I don’t see where they made any claim to be the first to ever utter “SyFy”, just that they created a new brand for themselves using that term. Perhaps it is just semantics, but I can completely see their position.
They decided to re brand. They chose to re brand as SyFy. They are not using it for the same purpose as you may have, they created a new brand for themselves. Just because they graciously paid you off to assure a clear and uncontested TM process on the term does not mean that you created their vision or brand and your continuous blathering about that makes no sense to the rest of the world outside of your community.
ALAN: My last name is Hinman (hehe), and to be honest, did you know that I never heard the whole Polish thing before NBCU bought the trademark? No one ever brought that up to me, but that explains why we have a better following in Poland NOW than we did then I bet, lol!
And yes, that word predates 1998, but remember, I am not talking about the actual creation of the word or any version of it. I’m talking about its specific usage as a variant spelling for “sci-fi.”
CARTOONZ: I’m sorry, but what people were focusing on was a DOMAIN sale, saying, “Wow, that’s way too much for a domain name” and the like, when that is not the case at all.
The discussion was over a trademark sale. Call it unregistered or whatever makes you feel better, but the simple fact is, you can’t compare a typical domain resale to a trademark sale. They are two different animals completely.
I am not going to keep repeating myself. If you cannot read the things that I say, and in the context that I provide it, I will stop saying it. I am doing everything I can to try and respond directly to questions and thoughts and such, and think about each one carefully.
The ONLY issue we have right now with NBCU at this moment is the claim that they created a brand and that it did not exist before. Everything else was talked about as just other discussion, and to bring up a point that I think has been something on the mind of people for a long time: People should be allowed to know exactly who it is they’re dealing with.
There’s no easy solution to it, but I’m sure a lot of you would like the same thing when dealing with domain sales and the like. Or maybe not.
Either way, it’s an opinion that I expressed, and if you disagree with it, I respect that. I am not looking for more money, just the truth. But there were a lot of comments being made here based on an inaccurate presentation of facts, and I wanted to make sure that the accurate take was presented. It’s not expected that people will change their mind, as I’m with you: The deal was struck, I signed the dotted line, and that’s that.
The discussion of money, however, came up in the column, like I have already said before (and saying now for the final time in this thread): We wanted to show that we are not asking for much, especially since we could’ve probably had grounds to demand for more. We’re not. We feel the value of the brand was probably worth closer to $2.5 million, but I feel that $2.25 million of that value comes in being acknowledged of the creator of a brand I did in fact create, whether I currently own it or not.
There really is nothing more or nothing less to it.
Wasn’t it obvious who it likely really was at that point? If it wasn’t, you must not have really looked at the deal very objectively at the time.
I was approached by a company calling itself New Fizz Corp. As soon as the offer was officially made, my attorney (and even I) scoured everywhere to find out who these people were, searching the Internet, corporate records, you name it.
All we knew is that they bought other domain names, and a lot of them, and likely were either a broker, or a site that would acquire names either with an established intent or possibly even a buyer.
By the way, based on the coverage that happened in March, there is now a Wikipedia entry on New Fizz Corp., that now identifies them as a company that represents media companies in making purchases, to help shield the fact that it is a major corporation looking to make an acquisition online, and it cites specifically the NBCU purchase of Syfy.
When their lawyer became involved, a background check revealed that he was an attorney who, AMONG OTHER PEOPLE, represented NBCU in the past. He also represented other companies, and other purchases and the like. So there was nothing evident in any way that this was NBCU. We felt it might be, because they maintained a major sci-fi property, but we were completely in the dark.
None of us knew who it was until March when we read the story in the New York Times.
Does that make me naive? Maybe it does. But if we even had an INKLING of who it was, things might have been different. Not necessarily more money, but likely a less contentious negotiating session, because our biggest concern was having competition using our old name more than anything else.
And who would imagine that someone wanted to buy a name that you created to rename a network after? I think the list of people that has happened to is very small. Hell, I might be the only one on it.
But the bottom line is that you negotiated and closed on a price that was obviously acceptable to you. You can’t go back later and cry foul because the buyer didn’t tell you they had more money than you supposed they had.
Once again, that is NOT what we’re crying foul about. If I was doing that, I wouldn’t have phrased the column as an open letter to Michael Engleman, who was never even INVOLVED In the negotiations, as far as I knew. New Fizz represented Dave Howe, the network’s president, from what I understood.
The reason why Mr. Engleman was singled out is because he was the one talking about CREATING the Syfy name, and “COINING” it, thus the crux of the actual column.
Creation credit, unless there’s an actual dispute, does not need to be spelled out in a legal document. If someone created something, and there’s no doubt that I had the Syfy name before NBCU, and they felt I owned the marks, as they “overpaid” for a “worthless domain” as it’s been described, then proper credit should be given. That’s what the whooole thing is about.
As for your dismay over creative credit, the term SyFy arguably predated your use of it by many accounts anyway. The domain name SyFy.com was registered by a different party as early as 1999.
Keep making this claim all you want, but for the LAST TIME (and I’m seriously not repeating myself again), SyFy World was created, without dispute, in August 1998. Period. The actual launch date was Aug. 13, 1998. I know that, because we celebrate the anniversary every year, and celebrated 10 years last year.
By what you provided here, the registration of syfy.com took place AFTER the founding of SyFy World. You don’t provide a month, but if it was registered around or after February 1999, then it was registered after SyFy World had not only fully launched, but already had its first big break: We became a spoiler site and was put on the map with our coverage of “Earth: Final Conflict.” Our visitors in January 1999 went from maybe 20 to 25 a day, to 4,000 a day (these are not uniques, these are just visitors — some could be repeats). But it was a significant jump, and we were getting some recognition.
I will not continue to discuss who owned the marks. We were never, ever challenged for the marks. We never found any other reference to the words in anything close to the context we used it in. And unless you can present to me anything that shows it predates Aug. 13, 1998, then we’ll talk.
But I will not continue to defend my ownership of the mark through last February. You have stated TWICE that syfy.com predated me, first using 2000, then using 1999 (if there was a domain purchase in 1999, it wasn’t first used until 2000 based on cache versions in that domain). Even if 1999 is accepted (I don’t seem to have the same type of access to historical purchases as you do), it still does NOT predate my public usage of it.
Period.
NBC-Universal is claiming credit of re branding its own platform to SyFy solely because SciFi is a generic term and indistinguishable. Their use of the SyFy mark and reason for changing to that term is completely different than what you claimed common law rights to
In what way? We used “Syfy” as an alternate spelling of “sci-fi.” We used it to brand our platform, which yes, was a Web-based news outlet, but still enough to common law or not be challenged if they tried to use it for their television and Web platform while not trying to acquire it from us.
I’m well aware of why NBCU was interested in it. The same reason why I was interested in creating it: I didn’t want to use other people’s trademarks, like “Sta Trek.” I wanted to create my own.
None of that is in dispute.
so yes they did create their own branding and rightfully so. I don’t see where they made any claim to be the first to ever utter “SyFy”, just that they created a new brand for themselves using that term. Perhaps it is just semantics, but I can completely see their position.
Read the most recent article from Variety quoting Michael Engleman, where it talks about how he “created” the actual name (not the branding protocol), and also how he “coined” the term.
THAT is the issue we have. We aren’t claiming that we created their branding strategy, just their name. And in those stories in Variety and Fortune, they are not talking about the branding strategy — they are talking SPECIFICALLY about the name.
They decided to re brand. They chose to re brand as SyFy. They are not using it for the same purpose as you may have, they created a new brand for themselves.
OK, so I am going to create a new brand of pens, and I’m going to call it Coca-Cola. Let me know how far I’ll get with that.
Just because they graciously paid you off to assure a clear and uncontested TM process on the term does not mean that you created their vision or brand and your continuous blathering about that makes no sense to the rest of the world outside of your community.
I don’t understand why you are being so rude. People don’t have a good opinion of domain resellers, but I always try to reserve judgment of anyone until I have a chance to interact.
You’re not helping that opinion.
I have answered your concerns, you have expressed your opinion. If there are any other questions specifically, I’ll be happy to answer them. However, I will not continue to debate my position or my opinion, especially since I have better things to do, and that some of you are just being a bit nasty (blathering?)
I also will correct anything misfactual that you present (it seems that facts are not something really important here … there are nothing but inaccuracies all over the place here, and even when they are corrected, the inaccurate statements just get repeated and repeated).
Also, whether or not it’s something only of interest to my “community,” one thing to note: I didn’t ask for anything to be written here. Until I received a message from the writer of this article, I had no idea this blog even existed.
I am not trying to push into your community. I was pulled into it with myth and inaccuracies.
Michael H
For the record (since you stated you did not know thedomains.com even existed today) this website is one of the most popular respected blogs in the domain community.
It is a blog where highly educated and upstanding investors in the domain industry (not the cyber squatters and obvious trademark infringers) come to chat so although the common perception of domain resellers may very well be negative you are actually chatting with some of the most respected people who in this industry who spend millions collectively each and every year to try and protect domain names for ALL small business.
With that said you are also speaking with people who absolutely love success stories – whether that is a $200 sale, $250,000 sale or $10 million sale. Domains, apples or aliens – does not matter.
Cartoonz is dead on with a lot of his points but I think at this point we all need to move on. Some of your comments just negate the entire point you tried to make with your post and I fear most (including myself) are confused by many of the arguments you make. Not to say you do not see them as valid but in terms of logical arguments the incorporation of demanding or assuming or at least stating that its “right” to know who the buyer is and then comment on how higher price COULD be warranted is exactly the bad apple of the story which dismisses any love for your tale whatsoever. Are you asking for more money – no, but the mere suggestion of it is enough.
Your last post
“But if we even had an INKLING of who it was, things might have been different. Not necessarily more money, but likely a less contentious negotiating session, because our biggest concern was having competition using our old name more than anything else”
You stated the lawyer was identified as previously working for NBCU (1 inkling)
You offered a $50,000 discount if they took a no-compete clause and they passed (2 inkling)
How many other buyers could you list for this term who would not sign a no-compete clause with a $250,000 checkbook (3 inkling)
I wish you the best of luck in any battle you decide to wage with NBCU and just know that to all the readers of this blog today you will be known as the guy who claimed to have created SYFY.
Whether that claim is true – who knows – but in terms of publicity on a Monday you’re not doing that bad.
Seeya – must leave this post and move on ….best of luck.
Michael
Just to add to the comments of Alan, he is spot on. I think its is simply awesome you got $250K for your domain and an unregistered trademark.
I like Alan says I’m very happy to report on success stories where ever they come from and have nothing but respect for the, IMHO, excellent deal you made.
For myself and many of the readers here, we just wished you were as happy with the deal as we would be.
Oh my. Someone who sold “syfy.com” for a quarter million dollars is complaining? Please tell me I’m reading that wrong.
TAKE THE MONEY. SHUT UP. INVEST IN MORE DOMAINS.
Good grief. That domain would maybe sell for $4k-$15k at auction…
I don’t know what I’m reading here, i’m very confused because I think I’m reading a complaint from a seller that he got “jipped” or something and should have received more for that domain. What’s he looking for? A down payment on a house next to Bill Gates?
There are about 10,000 active domainers who would have gladly sold that domain for $250k and snuck off into the darkness to figure out what to do with the cash.
You are on target, Mikey.
I would have sold them Scifant.com for $25k, much better name imo but I am biased