The W-League’s Senior Director, Melanie Fitzgerald, was gracious enough to answer some questions regarding the current state of the league, its outlook for the future and her thoughts on what’s going to transpire on the field for the 2010 season.

In the final installment of our interview Melanie discusses how one can follow the W-League, a bit about her background, the W-League’s dedication to developing youth and why the 2010 could be the most competitive season yet. Check out Part One here and Part Two here.

AWK: The W-League has really immersed itself within the social media world. You have your blog, you’re on Twitter and Facebook. What are some of the ways fans can follow the league and watch its games?

MF: We’ve definitely made it an initiative of the company to really make a strong effort. We’ve established Twitter accounts which is really a company-wide effort to our Facebook to our blog, we’re making a cognizant effort. We think its important from fan perspectives to really get some inside information and what’s going on behind the scenes with the league instead of what’s getting published in press releases. I think it’s a great platform to engage fans and also with players. Facebook allows us to connect with players across the league and start dialogues with them to see what’s going on with them at a personal level. With that being said, I think we’re going to see more initiatives coming out within the next couple of weeks in regards to how you’te going to be able to follow the W-League and watch W-League matches. We do currently have the USL Live portal which we’ve used mainly from USL Pro standpoint. We’re going to be launching more information on that over the next couple of weeks as to how that’s going to start directly working with the W-League so you are going to definitely have the opportunity to watch some matches this year. Beyond that, we’re trying to encourage teams to put out Twitter updates and use Match Tracker which is available on the website. Some teams do a great job with that, others we have to work with more. You’re definitely going to have a lot more opportunities this year from years past. We have our W-League Championship which is going to be broadcast on FoxSoccerChannel.com.

We also have more teams utilize their local television channels to broadcast their games. So while you may not be able to watch these games on a national level, this is still pretty exciting. Ottawa Fury will be utilizing local channels, Seattle Sounders will have several of their games on television, the Long Island Rough Rider, Hampton Roads Piranhas. There’s multiple teams that are starting to do that which is fantastic.

AWK: What’s the process behind that? Do local networks reach out to the W-League or do you guys reach out to them?

MF: It’s more on a local level. Those teams develop relationships with their local networks and establish those. So where we need to come in we will, but I have to give full credit to my teams for doing that. They do a great job with really working with the media and ensuring that they cover the games. Look at local cable companies. They do so much to cover local sports in college and high school sports so as long as teams make an effort to show that they’re there, they do stand a good chance that they’ll be able to build them in.

AWK: Professionally, you’ve come out of the youth soccer world particualry in USL. What’s the transition been like from that to becoming the Senior Director of one of just three women’s professional leagues in the continent?

MF: Well it’s been a great opportunity, I think coming from the youth soccer world has been one of the greatest advantages I’ve had. When you work in the youth side it really opens your eyes to what’s happening on the national scale in so many different markets. You get to understand and learn about the moving dynamics at what’s happenings at the grassroots level and once you can start to get a grasp of what’s happening there and how that’s transpiring up, that just makes for an incredible difference for the overall growth of the game. 50 percent of the people I had been working with were also in the W-League so the transition was pretty smooth. Obviously there’s different dynamics between youth, amateur and pro but they do coincide as well. From there it’s been a personal goal of mine to connect those two together. Sometimes people are aware of what’s going on in the youth but they look at it like it’s a separate entity. It needs to be connected more and more. We’ve really been working on building our national presence with both the Super-Y and the Super 20 League. We most recently launched the Women’s Super 20 League in Colorado which is part of an iniatitive of mine to try to increase the grassroots level in different pockets of the country where we want to grow even more from a W-League standpoint. If we continue to grow those pieces, it will continue to move forward from there.

AWK: Can you elaborate on the youth side of the sport with the Super Y League and the Super 20 League?

MF: We have the Super Y League which is U-13 through U-17 and we have a female national presence with that. The Super 20 League is for the U18, U19, U20 player. Traditionally, we’ve had much a more national presence on the men’s side for U 20. On the female side, it’s been primarily East Coast based. A big initiative of that for this year is to expand that to the Midwest and out to the West Coast. And we’ve been able to launch in Colorado this year. We’re also looking to launch in the Midwest, Great Lakes, Northwest, Texas and California. We really feel like establishing that is part of the growth of the W-League. A lot of W-League teams have Super Y and Super 20 teams as Reserve teams. And look at what’s happening with the Washington Freedom for example. They have a Super Y league, they have Super 20 program, they have a W-League team and a WPS team. Ideally I think it would make sense for every WPS team to have that exact same model. And even with that, W-League teams having that model as well with Super 20 and Super Y beneath them. I think it’s very important for owners to know and understand that and then enhance it from the bottom up. Even with that, bringing in new groups that aren’t necessarily involved in the W-League. Getting them involved in the grassroots level and then eventually they can see the need for a higher level. I think that’s going to support the overall growth of women’s soccer in the future.

AWK: And on the youth soccer point again, I know that on the men’s side the Vancouver Whitecaps have a residency program for their youth players. Is this in place for the women’s team as well and is it something we can see in the future?

MF: It’s a little different for the women’s program in Vancouver. They were using their program for a Residency but they also had a relationship in the past with the Canadian National Team. They were serving that team as a Residency for that but that’s no longer the case per se. I think you’ll start to see more of those models happen. It’s kind of different on the men’s side because they use their PDL team as a pro team so they pay their players directly. Should Vancouver go the pro route, it would make a lot of sense for them to do that on the female side as well.

AWK: And lastly, which storylines are you most looking forward to unfolding this season? Will the Pali Blues make it a three-peat?

MF: I think that’s going to be one of our most interesting stories. The Western Conference is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in the league this year. There’s the new expansion franchise the Colorado Rush, the Colorado Force is bolstering the roster, there’s Pali Blues and I’m getting continual updates from Charlie [Naimo, team manager]. And the Vancouver Whitecaps have a new coach this year and he’s really working hard to bring in some top-class players. That division is going to be really fun to watch. On top of that, I’m anxious to see how the new teams will do in the New Jersey Valkyries and the New Jersey Rangers. Also, the Buffalo Flash. They’re the only fully professional team in the league so how is that going to affect standings? Will Ottawa make it to the Final Four? Will the Washington Freedom make it back to the Final Four? I think those will be some interesting things to watch.

Thanks again to Melanie and be sure to check out the W-League’s new directly-branded homepage at http://wleague.uslsoccer.com. You can also follow Melanie on Twitter @mfitzgeraldUSL.

View Original Post at allwhitekit.wordpress.com

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