The Fédération Internationale de Basketball (FIBA) has won the new gTLD .Basketball.

The two other applicants Donuts and Famous Four Media have withdrawn their applications with ICANN.

.Basketball was scheduled to go to the ICANN last resort auction in December.

Minds + Machines is the backend provider.

This is from FIBA site:

“FIBA, the International Basketball Federation, is the world governing body for basketball.

Founded in 1932, we bring together 214 National Basketball Federations from all over the world.

We organise and oversee international competitions that include the FIBA Basketball World Cup, the Olympic Basketball Tournament and 3×3 basketball.

We establish the official basketball rules as well as the regulations that govern the relationships between the different members of the basketball community.

We Are Basketball”

This is from FIBA application for .Basketball:

“The .basketball TLD is intended to benefit internet users by enabling persons, entities and organizations with an affinity for basketball to communicate more easily and effectively with each other and with all internet users. Internet users will benefit from a more distinctive and trustworthy internet experience in dealing with .basketball domain registrants and users. The FIBA expects to provide an ample supply of relevant and available domain names for interested persons to claim an internet presence within the .basketball domain space. Today, people, entities and organizations with an affinity for basketball, or any other sport, do not have any particular top-level domain space catering to their needs, but instead use a variety of the existing gTLDs and ccTLDs without any consistency.

The goal is to promote the FIBA’s online infrastructure and services to encourage internet users from around the world to interact online with each other. Millions of people and entities identify with the sport of basketball, and therefore may benefit from registering and using .basketball domain names to communicate. The FIBA seeks to make .basketball domain names ubiquitous among people, entities and organizations with an affinity for basketball, by creating a recognized platform for them to express themselves online.

In order to achieve this goal, the FIBA intends to provide a trusted and secure domain space, with industry standard service levels. The FIBA has chosen Minds and Machines Registry Services as its back-end registry services provider, with the expectation that Minds and Machines will deliver world class service to the FIBA and to all .basketball domain registrants and users.

The TLD will provide an alternative to the current TLDs, focused upon the sport of basketball. The TLD will serve as a differentiation force, as a distinctive name space that simplifies users’ choice to interact with people, entities and organizations with an affinity for the sport of basketball.

The FIBA expects that many users will be able to directly navigate to intuitive .basketball domains and subdomains, saving time and resources from first accessing a search engine.

It seems there will be many new TLDs, including a number of TLDs corresponding to sports (e.g., .sport, .tennis, .surf). Therefore, it is expected that consumers will learn to distinguish the new TLDs from the existing TLDs and from other new TLDs. The very use of domains within the .basketball TLD ultimately should impact competition by lessening the amount of other domain registrations that .basketball registrants register and maintain with existing registration providers. This effect, multiplied by many new TLDs, should result in increased competition among the existing registration providers. They will need to compete more fiercely for the remaining business interest in their existing TLDs, and with many new organizations offering use and⁄or registration of new TLD domain names. The logical effect should be lower pricing and better service for all internet users.

Today, it is often difficult to find a relevant and easily available domain name from existing registration providers. Even if one is found, often pricing is prohibitive because the domain name is only available on the secondary market. All new domains must be purchased from third parties and then managed as intellectual property assets. These expenses and complications can be dramatically reduced over time. The .basketball TLD will allow people and entities with an affinity to the sport of basketball to innovate, and to create many uses for domain names which with today’s restrictions on the availability of domain names are too complicated. An ample supply of immediately available, relatively inexpensive domain names relevant to the sport of basketball is likely to pay dividends in ways we do not currently foresee.

The TLD is intended to function with leading-edge technologies and business practices, ensuring a trustworthy and positive user experience. The goal is to promote the FIBA’s online infrastructure and services to encourage internet users with an affinity to basketball to interact online with each other.

More specifically, the FIBA intends for users to perceive the TLD as a trustworthy indicator of the source of online information and services relevant to basketball given the promotion of .basketball as under the guidance of the FIBA organisation The FIBA intends to provide a safe and legitimate Internet space, enhancing user experience by mitigating security-associated risks, as further described in response to Questions 28 and 29.

In addition, the .basketball TLD will provide an easily navigable and predictable domain name space. For example, geographicnames.basketball for localized websites, and product.basketball for websites related to products relevant to basketball. All of this will lessen users’ confusion when interacting online.

The .basketball TLD will be open and unrestricted, allowing anyone to select an appropriate .basketball domain name for their own legitimate purposes.

Bad faith and other illegal uses of .basketball domain names will not be tolerated.”