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Earlier in the day, I reported that Universal Studios allowed the domain name, Leatherheads.com to expire just days before the release of their full feature movie. As I watched television earlier this evening, I came across one of their commercials. As it went through, I was curious to know where they had actually decided to host the movie site but as the commerical ended, I hadn’t seen one.

Thanks to the miracle of DVR, I went back slowly to examine the end of the commercial credits and there it was. Carefully hidden away so you could barely make it out, the domain name the site was hosted on: LeatherheadsMovie.com

At this point in the story, you must be asking yourself, who in Gods name is running Universal Studios Internet marketing? Why would you use LeatherheadsMovie.com, when you’ve owned Leatherheads.com for 10 years? Stupidity at its finest.

Justin

Universal Studios is releasing the movie - Leatherheads (Starring George Clooney) to the big screen on April 4th. With all of the print and television marketing they are doing right now, someone dropped the ball and failed to renew the domain name LeatherHeads.com.

The domain lapsed on March 21st, and is now resolving to the very popular Network Solutions expired page. Also interesting to note Universal Studios has held the domain at least as far back as 2001. This means that they had this movie either on the back burner or pending development for at least 7 years, and they wait till 2 weeks before the launch of their movie to allow the domain name to expire and potential traffic to be redirected. It doesn’t get much more idiotic then that.

Justin

Side Note: Appologies for anyone who followed the old link on Domaining.com - the original post was causing some errors with Wordpress.