Return of RNY…and the Rhinos?

A few weeks ago we broke the behind-the-scenes shenanigans about RNYFC domain selling for upwards of $10,000 in an auction on GoDaddy. After the auction, it takes a few weeks for ownership to change hands. The auction was handled through GoDaddy, coincidently the same company RNYFC uses for their domains. This auction would have had to been OK’ed by the original owner as it was completed during their renewal period, so there isn’t any way for the Dworkins to take the site this quickly. Now that some time has passed, we have some clarity on who is the owner, as well as what the Dworkin’s have been up to with the Rhino’s.

This morning, the RNYFC domain has reverted to the original owners, and the name servers have reverted to a European host. While Morris and his group have played coy the last year, it appears his group is back in ownership of the domain.

This puts into question how the auction actually happened. The domain is back with the original owner, so the sale was either cancelled, or someone who isn’t the original owner has regained ownership of the site. Obviously, this is a lot of money to have spent for essentially nothing to have occurred.

They have also not reverted back to the site hosted on MLSNP’s page as we had all of last year. The site is currently hosted on a custom website in Germany with no data in it, except for an RNYFC icon on one of the pages.

The biggest change is with their e-mail provider. Previously the team had been using a paid service with Google, and now, they’re using the provided one with their website provider.

This is a lot of nerd speak, but what does it mean? My feeling is there is still a push from someone on the UK side for the name RNYFC. If there wasn’t, the website wouldn’t have been created as you don’t need to have one to own a domain. Even if we are just seeing the domain revert to the original owner without any money having changed hands, the website wouldn’t have been customized the way it has been. It also shows in my view that the Dworkins aren’t involved with this as it’d be very strange for them to have a website hosted in Germany, or to have this domain still hosted with another domain provider. My gut is telling me the UK side wants to work with FCU to bring them back to the professional side. They had talks at the end of 2022 which were close but couldn’t get over the name. This may mean that issue is resolved. We know that NPSL wasn’t the first destination for FCU this year, and the goal is still to return to professional play in 2025.

The e-mail change also indicates to me that this is being seen as a longer term project, completely separate from the Dworkins. The former Google hosted RNYFC.com addresses are still active, but no e-mail will go there. Tellingly, e-mail security settings such as SPF and DMARC are set accurately, so there is someone behind the wheel who knows what they’re doing…or who can copy and paste records a tutorial gives you.

Coincidently, RhinosSoccer.com, the original domain for the Rochester Rhinos, is now active with a parked GoDaddy site and also has the old RNYFC e-mail server setup in its settings. Somewhat tellingly, it doesn’t have all of the correct e-mail settings yet, and it doesn’t appear the server has been setup with any RhinosSoccer addresses yet either.

I don’t feel we will have any clear answers quickly here unfortunately. Either former professional team in Rochester needs an investor to come in to help with the high costs for a team. We’re 3 months from when any announcement for 2025 would make sense, and as has been happening more often in professional soccer lately, announcements typically occur 18 months ahead of the team playing. What we do know from this is that there is movement on the UK and US front of RNYFC in totally different directions. I don’t fully understand the decision to move forward with RNYFC personally as the Flower City Union name is simply better, and has a championship win that RNY can’t claim. But if Vardy is somehow back in this, I could see why they wouldn’t want to drop the name either.