I had the most unexpected flashback in the midst of writing yesterday’s post. I was just typing the part about eroding audience at TV networks when I started to type “superbowl.com.” Here’s the story.

A client and good friend from NationsBank traveled with me from Atlanta to New York City to meet with senior management at NFL.com. It must have been 1997 or 1998 — back when the Web was still the new kid on the block and sites were generally pretty lame by today’s standards.

The guy we met made us a most unexpected offer. My company Interactive Planet could “rent” Superbowl.com for a five year term for $250,000. We could keep all the money from advertising on the site, and promote it however we saw fit. The deal would have had us owning the URL through 2001 or 2002, as I recall.

It’s been said, “An error becomes a mistake when we refuse to admit it.” So OK. Here it is. I messed-up by not taking the deal from the NFL. What a story that would have been…