Ever heard of the band Tea Party? Of course not, unless you’ve been living in Canada for the past decade or two. And even then it might be a stretch for anyone reading this blog to say “Oh… yeah. Tea Party. “The Edges of Twilight” was a wicked awesome album… eh?”
But now these crooning canucks may have more influence over the future advertisement of various American Republican candidates than Matt Drudge.
That’s because the band, known mainly as the pioneers of the musical style “Moroccan Roll,” bought the rights to the domain name TeaParty.com in 1993. After a moderately successful run, including tours in Europe and Australia, the band split in 2005, and the site was largely forgotten about.
Then Washington came calling.
Apparently the NEW Tea Party finally got fed up after having to redirect millions of limited-government supporters from what would be the obvious and convenient URL, to the less obvious TeaParty.org or TeaPartyPatriots.org.
Granted, those two sites are among the first few results in any Tea Party Google search. But considering the average internet user’s propensity for direct-navigation traffic (web addresses typed directly into a browser’s address field), it would make sense for the up and coming political movement to buy out the rockers’ site once and for all.
At what cost?
Possibly over a million dollars, which would put TeaParty.com among very select company, along with sites like Vodka.com and Poker.com, which sold for $3 million and $1 million, respectively, to sell for seven figures or more.
Not bad for a group that never had an American hit.
The problem, though, is that the band already reunited for a summer tour, and is set to head off to Australia for another in February. Which could mean bigger bucks for Stuart and the Jeffs (the band’s three members), or just one big middle finger from north of the border, should the guys choose not to sell.
Stay tuned. This might be a fun story to follow.
Considering the push the Tea Party is trying to make leading up to the 2012 elections, having an impressive central website (that takes as little effort to find as possible) could make a real difference in the number of voters checking off names on the Republican side of the ballot two Novembers from now.
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