The Top-Level Domain (TLD) “.afl” is a sponsored top-level domain in the internet’s Domain Name System (DNS). Specifically, “.afl” is a brand TLD, which is a type of internet domain used by brands, organizations, or individuals that wish to showcase their brand identity online.
The “.afl” TLD was assigned to the Australian Football League (AFL). The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the internet secure, stable and interoperable, assigned this TLD to the AFL.
ICANN functions by facilitating discussions and promoting policies related to the internet’s system of unique identifiers, and includes generic TLDs (gTLDs), country-code TLDs (ccTLDs), internationalized domain name TLDs (IDN TLDs), and others. As is the case with most brand TLDs (that are gTLDs), the “.afl” domain is not open to the public for registration of domain names and is used by the owning organization, the Australian Football League, specifically for its own purposes (source: ICANN).
As per ICANN’s records, the Australian Football League (AFL), as the contracting party, with Neustar, Inc., a leading global information services provider and the leader in Identity Resolution (source: neustar.biz), as the back-end registry service provider, entered a Registry Agreement under which AFL is authorized to operate the .afl top-level domain.
In practice, you will find many websites from this league using this domain. For instance, the AFL’s main site can be found at “www.afl.com.afl” while each of the teams have their own “.afl” website, such as “www.hawks.afl” for Hawthorn Hawks, “www.cats.afl” for the Geelong Cats, and “www.bombers.afl” for Essendon Bombers (source: own website). These allow the organization’s online properties to have a distinct identity associated with them, and promote the AFL brand across all its digital platforms.
As a side note, “.afl” joins a vast number of industry or brand-specific TLDs that have appeared in recent years as part of a significant expansion of the domain name system initiated by ICANN. These include, for instance, “.google” for Google Inc., “.microsoft” for Microsoft Corporation, and “.apple” for Apple Inc. Just like “.afl”, these are all brand TLDs.
In conclusion, the .afl TLD helps the Australian Football League to strengthen its digital brand identity, ensure a consistent web presence by providing a clear internet domain boundary for all its websites, and thereby improving the online user experience for all its fans and followers.
Sources:
- ICANN (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/tlds-2012-02-25-en)
- Neustar (https://www.home.neustar/)
- Australian Football League (https://www.afl.com.au/)
