MIES (Switzerland) - The .basketball domain name, established by FIBA in June 2017 as the digital identity linking the global basketball community, has been adopted by some of the sport's biggest stakeholders, including leading FIBA National Member Federations, national teams and top clubs.

Among the latest and most notable adopters of .basketball names are:

• National Federations: Argentina (argentina.basketball); Dem. Rep. of Congo (leopards.basketball); Iraq (iraq.basketball); Philippines (pilipinas.basketball); Sweden (sweden.basketball); UAE (uae.basketball). 
• Top clubs: AS Monaco (asmonaco.basketball); Bamberg (bamberg.basketball); Kataja (kataja.basketball); Leicester (leicester.basketball); Nizhny Novgorod (NN.basketball); The Southern Huskies (SouthernHuskies.basketball).
• Wheelchair national team: Australia (rollers.basketball).
• Leading basketball specialized media outlet: Sportando (sportando.basketball).

Furthermore, the project is proving extremely popular in FIBA's Asian region, where 35 national federations are currently in the process of changing their respective official website over to .basketball.

All stakeholders who adopted the domain name when it was first made available to FIBA's 213 National Member Federations and their respective members in the summer of 2017, have demonstrated their complete satisfaction as every single one of them has renewed use of the domain name after the first year.

Changing to a clearer domain name such as .basketball also leads to increased Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as proven by the Basketball Champions League. Since making the move from basketballcl.com to championsleague.basketball, the league's official website appears higher up the ranking order in searches and is seeing a significant increase in the amount of traffic coming via search engines as well as directly.

FIBA is also making the case studies of Australia and New Zealand - two of the first signatories - available in order to assist new ones to get the best experience possible.

For its part, FIBA has completed its switch to .basketball with all of its websites carrying that domain name (starting with its flagship competitions, the Men's and Women's World Cups) and also applying it to e-mail addresses.

FIBA is among very few international federations to have successfully applied to secure the Top Level Domain (TLD) named after its sport. As a result, it is in a position to provide all of the sport's stakeholders and fans with a trusted and secure domain space, consistent with industry standard service levels.

FIBA adopted the .basketball domain name to:

• Accelerate the promotion of basketball and stakeholder brands in a controlled environment;
• Promote the sport and unify the global community online under a common banner;
• Make sure the rights of privileged basketball stakeholders are preserved;
• Link all participants via a specific identity and create a recognizable digital space for all basketball-related activities online.

For further details on obtaining your national, club or player registrations in .basketball, contact digital@fiba.basketball or visit roar.basketball.

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About FIBA
FIBA (fiba.basketball) - the world governing body for basketball - is an independent association formed by 213 National Basketball Federations throughout the world. It is recognized as the sole competent authority in basketball by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

For further information about FIBA, visit fiba.basketball or follow FIBA on facebook.com/fiba, twitter.com/fiba, instagram.com/fiba and youtube.com/fiba.