A while back, we looked into who owns Nets.com, and why that web address doesn't redirect to the NBA website's subpage for the Brooklyn Nets. Type in the name for any other team in the league, and you'll be redirected to NBA.com/TEAM. If you typed in Nets.com a few months ago, you were redirected to the webpage of Cyber Mesa, a telecommunications company based in Santa Fe, NM. Starting in early October, that changed: you were instead redirected to a page that looked like this:
The text below read, "Mikhail, have you noticed? Vilena wondered..." This was likely a reference to a prostitution scandal that ensnared Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov in 2007. It certainly seemed like trolling, intended to get a response from Prokhorov. The only question left was who was responsible.
Well, stuck-out tongue picture notwithstanding, you can probably cross Mark Cuban off of the list: As of today, The Brooklyn Game notes, Nets.com redirects not only to the Knicks' website but to their All-Star ballot, the means by which they'll be elected to the All-Star game over, perhaps, Brooklyn Nets players. It seems possible that Cyber Mesa is simply trying to get the Nets to buy the domain name, and if that's the case, you have to admire the trollish ingenuity with which they're making their pitch. It's probably not the most efficient way to embarrass the Nets—they're paying Brook Lopez $61 million over the next four years—but maybe it'll inspire some action anyway.
The Plot Thickens: Nets.com Now Takes You To The Official New York Knicks Website [The Brooklyn Game]