If Detroit is granted a Major League Soccer expansion team, it could be called Detroit City Soccer Club.

Tom Gores' Palace Sports & Entertainment has registered more than a dozen website domains using variations of that team name in an apparent effort to secure online real estate for the MLS team he and Dan Gilbert jointly want for a proposed $1 billion downtown stadium development.

Palace Sports spokesman Kevin Grigg confirmed that the domain names were secured but cautioned that the soccer effort remains early in the process and nothing has been decided on a team name. He declined to discuss any details of the domains or other names. Gilbert's Detroit-based Bedrock LLC real estate firm deferred comment to Palace Sports.

The domain names, all registered Sept. 28 through a Palace email address, are variations of "Detroit City Soccer Club" (see box). The domains, which expire Sept. 28, 2018, currently redirect to palacenet.com.

They were discovered by Crain's using a reverse domain lookup, which allows anyone to find website domain names registered using a specific email address.

Additionally, the Twitter account @DetroitCitySC, created in January, is a locked account with no information available.

The name registrations don't necessarily mean the MLS team would be called Detroit City Soccer Club. It's a common practice in sports and business to register potential names early at a relatively low cost before someone else — called cybersquatters — buys them with the intent of selling them at an inflated price — which is what happened with the www.littlecaesarsarena.com domain website.

Gores and Gilbert, if they get a team, also could pick another name and register different domains and social media accounts. They submitted their MLS expansion bid on Jan. 31, and the league expects to award teams to two cities later this year, and another two in 2018.

The Detroit City Soccer Club name is strikingly similar to Detroit City Football Club, the popular semi-pro soccer team that plays to 5,000 fans a game at Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck. The owners of Detroit City FC are seeking to become a professional club and have acknowledged they've talked to the Gores-Gilbert effort about possible investment or purchase. The semi-pro club needs significant outside investment to play in a pro league, and for the billionaire duo Gores-Gilbert, buying or taking a share of Detroit City FC theoretically gives them a turn-key entry into the local soccer ecosystem.

A message was left for Detroit City FC co-owner Todd Kropp, who acts as spokesman for the ownership group.

Gores' staff has been handling the soccer portion of the MLS deal while Gilbert's lieutenants are working on the stadium land deal.

Gilbert, the founder and chairman of Quicken Loans Inc. and Rock Ventures LLC, and Gores, the private equity industrialist who bought the Detroit Pistons in 2011, want the team to play at their proposed $1 billion 25,000-seat stadium and mixed-use development. Their goal is to have a stadium ready by 2020. The site they want is the half-built Wayne County Consolidated Jail at Gratiot Avenue and I-375, and they remain in talks with county government on securing the site.