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Footy is back... already!

Our footy experts preview the new rules, new coaches and new players for this weekend's opening round of the NAB Cup.

The Australian Football League (AFL) is looking to establish a bigger presence on the internet and has applied for a new top-level domain ".afl".

The global governing body for domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), in June 2011 approved the expansion of domain names beyond ".com" to ".anything".

The application period for the new suffixes opened in mid-January 2012 and closes in April 2012.

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It costs $US185,000 ($A173,578) to apply to ICANN for a new suffix.

AFL general manager of strategy and marketing Andrew Catterall said that a specific AFL top-level domain name would help the football code expand and protect its brand, and create new commercial opportunities.

It would enable AFL fans to access reliable and trusted information on games, players and clubs more easily.

Fans would be able to access content by typing into their computer, phone or other digital platform: fixtures.afl, ladder.afl or merchandise.afl.

Players and clubs could have their own sites, such as daneswan.afl or collingwood.afl.

Sponsors could have nab.afl or ten.afl.

If the site did not end in .afl, it would indicate the content was not verified or official.

"We're making long-term investment decisions across the business, building our official media capacity, building stadiums, expansion (of the code)," Catterall said.

"We weighed this (the top-level domain name) up and think it's a valid application to make to try to secure the licence for a long-term result.

"We're always vigilant about how AFL content and the AFL brand is represented online and sometimes outside of our environment."

Catterall said the potential for the .afl space was still to be fully ascertained.

"The scope of it will evolve over time. This is a multiple-year migration. It will take time. We're not rushing it," he said.

Domain registry company Melbourne IT is helping the AFL apply for the new top-level domain name, and ARI Registry Services has been chosen as the technology provider for .afl.

ARI chief executive Adrian Kinderis said having a top-level domain name was like having a lighthouse for your brand because it helped users avoid fake websites - a point well understood by banks.

"In this case, if it doesn't end in .afl, then don't go there," Mr Kinderis said.

Kinderis said he hoped that the AFL's move to apply for new top-level domain name would prompt other major organisations or companies in Australia to do the same.

He said awareness of the availability of new top-level domain names in North America was huge, but tiny in Australia.

"This is absolutely going to impact every single internet user," Kinderis said. "You can't just wave this off as fad.

"We want to ensure that Australia doesn't let this be a North American-wide web."

AAP

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AFL applies for new domain