Website The Women’s Game (TWG) is just weeks away from filming a pilot for the 15 episode programme that tracks the weekly ins and outs of the Aussie league and the home grown stars making it big on the international stage.
 
Hosting the series will be Matildas great and Western Sydney Wanderers captain Sarah Walsh who says she’s excited to be involved with the project.
 
“There’s currently nothing like this out there and I’m looking forward to seeing what we can achieve together," Walsh said.
 
A huge jump in interest for the game has seen traffic on the TWG site jump by more than 50 per cent in the past 18 months, encouraging those behind the series to take the next step.
 
TWG’s editor Ann Odong said: “We’ve got some great players in some of the biggest leagues in women’s football so the series is going to have a look at their progress and how they’re going.
 
"And all of them are doing really well, especially in the US.”
 
Fans – and potential sponsors – will get a taste of things to come later this month when the crew reports on the Matildas’ two friendlies against New Zealand Football Ferns on June 13 and16. The pilot is expected to go online four days later.
 
To raise funds for equipment and production, TWG is harnessing the game’s growing supporter base by hosting a crowd funding campaign.  
 
Despite plenty of quality input from production to promotion the pilot is being produced on a shoestring budget of $5000.
 
With TWG just $1500 shy of that target, fans are being encouraged to jump on board and show their support by picking up one of the supporter packages, ranging from stickers and game day tickets to signed jerseys.
 
TWG is the main source for Australian women's football content and Odong believes the biggest market for the series lies offshore. 
 
“Probably most of our growth has been in terms of the US and our interaction with US fans and supporters,” she said.
 
“They’ve seen the likes of Kyah Simon, Lisa De Vanna and now Caitlin Foord and Sam Kerr across there. And they really enjoy the skill level of these players and the way Australians play full stop.
 
“It was amazing that some fans were staying up until 2am US time to watch tweets of the W-League – not even live footage – so that’s been the level of engagement that’s come.
 
“I really believe the market for the W-League, surprisingly, is overseas. Overseas, women’s football is a much more mature product and the fans definitely consume it better and have a better engagement.”
 
Odong said new media presented the most viable method of maximizing the local game’s global appeal.
 
“One of the things that we found with women’s football is that because there’s not great broadcast coverage around the world, the major portal for women’s football is YouTube,” she said.
 
“The US women’s team is probably the best team in terms of its marketing, promotion and broadcasting for their national team and national league.
 
“They use YouTube really well in terms of being able to create a portal where people can access all their videos and all their programmes, so that’s what we’re going to try to imitate in a way.
 
“We’re going to have the programme, but within the programme, we’re going to have lots of links to take you to other interviews of note in relation to that programme.”
 
After years of struggling in the wilderness, the women’s game looks to have turned a corner last season.
 
The blockbuster Big Blue grand final between eventual winners Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory, turned out to be a bigger blue than most expected with healthy numbers of A-League active support filing into AAMI Park for the title clash.
 
Odong sees it as a significant point in the game’s history: “Last season of the W-League was probably the best in terms of mainstream acceptance and also mainstream media attention.
 
“For a long time supporters like myself, it’s often been me, the players, the players’ families and a dog or two - that’s what it seemed like for the first couple of years.
 
“Just to see the active supporters from the A-League clubs start to embrace their W-League clubs was incredible.
 
“At the next home game for Sydney FC they had the big tifo celebrating the grand final winners - that kind of thing feels like validation.”