There are a lot more in the way of costs than simply the application fee - which in the last round was $185k. For example you need to stick a significant amount

There are a lot more in the way of costs than simply the application fee - which in the last round was $185k. For example you need to stick a significant amount of cash into an escrow account to guarantee the continuity of the registry if you go bust or walk away. I think we had to put in something like $200k. Developing all the registry documentation is also hugely costly. If you’re running an open gTLD chance are you initial set up costs are around $1m. I ran a registry for a while on behalf of some investors who had been sold a pig in a poke.