Euro 2024 fans searching for sponsor BYD accidentally land at X-rated website

Euro 2024 fans searching for sponsor “BYD” accidentally land at an X-rated website.

Updated on: Jul 4, 2024, 16:09:28 IST

Edited by Sanya Jain

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The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, better known as Euro 2024, is currently underway in Germany. One of the tournament’s many sponsors is Chinese automobile company BYD. However, some curious fans looking for the BYD website are being inadvertently redirected to an X-rated site instead.

A still from Austria vs Turkey at Euro 2024. (AFP)

Why is this happening?

The Euro 2024 tournament is taking place in Germany. Now, some Germans curious about BYD used the German domain extension – “dot de” – instead of the standard “dot com” while looking up the website.

Unfortunately, “BYD dot de” redirects to the website of a company selling adult toys. An X user explained it well in his viral post by writing: “Huge blunder for BYD at the Euros - a Chinese car manufacturer , and one of the sponsors of the Euros in Germany, and so naturally Germans have searched for it via the german extension ‘byd .de’ which leads you to another site….”

“We are not the sponsors”

The X-rated website has apparently seen a surge in traffic since the beginning of Euro 2024. So much so that it has put up a notice for anyone who may have accidentally found his way there.

The notice on the website reads: “Important note on the Euro 2024. Due to the numerous enquiries: We are NOT sponsors of the EURO 24 Football Championship. If you are looking for a Chinese vehicle manufacturer you can find it at www.byd.com.”

Publicity stunt?

The jury is still out on whether or not this is a publicity stunt.

In the comments section of the social media post, people wondered whether the notice on the adult toys website is genuine or just a genius move to gain publicity.

“Or… is it genius? I have seen this story 47 times in 2 days. That’s 47 times more than I was aware of their sponsorship,” wrote one X user.

“Idk, seems like pretty funny and unintentional viral marketing,” another countered.

“The cynic in me suspects this was done intentionally by a prankster. & it's quite funny, fair play. BYD should have never let it happen, though,” a third person commented.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More