Walsh: Football Australia charting a new era of unprecedented Matildas demand
Exclusive: Football Australia's Head of Women's Football Sarah Walsh has no doubts that the Matildas have the ability to sell out the MCG, part of a new era of unprecedented popularity and love.
Another Matildas home game, another Matildas sellout crowd. That’s 12 now on the bounce, now, for those keeping track at home; it taking less than a week from its Monday announcement for the side to sell out their Olympic qualifier against Uzbekistan at Marvel Stadium next February.
Yet while talk of the game being headed to the MCG rather than the Docklands venue proved unfounded, Football Australia’s Head of Women's Football Sarah Walsh has little doubt the team is capable of selling out the venerable, 100k capacity ground.
For months, talk had been that Football Australia would seek to take the game to the MCG and set a new record for a standalone women’s sporting event, which is currently held by the 92,003 fans that attended Memorial Stadium to support the University of Nebraska’s volleyball side against Wisconsin.
However, Taylor Swift’s three sold-out shows at the MCG between February 16 and 18 rendered it unavailable to be used for the game, which will be played four days after the Matildas and Uzbeks clash in the tie’s first leg in Tashkent.
Instead, four days after the announcement that the Matildas would be taking the second leg of their ties with the Uzbeks to Marvel – the same venue where their run of sellout fixtures began with their World Cup send-off fixture against France in July – Football Australia announced that tickets to fill the 53k capacity venue had been exhausted.
But Walsh, who was on the scoresheet the last time the Matildas met Uzbekistan, a 10-win in Olympic Qualifiers for the 2008 Olympics, believes that records would have fallen had the fixture been able to be taken to the the centrepiece of Melbourne’s sporting scene.
“It’s my personal opinion -- it's obviously not built off any kind of modelling --but yes,” Walsh said. “People will travel interstate now for the Matildas and we saw a little bit of that for Perth – people are just so desperate to get into stadiums.
“Victoria… Victorians say that it's the sporting capital of Australia and we absolutely think the demand is there.
“And one thing that gives me confidence is all the new fans we were able to unlock through the Women's World Cup.
“We have a whole bunch of new fans. We're crunching the numbers at the moment, around who attended matches. A stat that might surprise you is that 44% of fans who attended the Women's World Cup were male.
“A lot of men and boys and families absolutely love the Matildas now and that's why we think that there's a surplus of fans post-World Cup beyond the core base of Matildas.
“And we're looking to build that momentum all the way out to an Asia Cup in 2026.”
Thus, for now, Marvel where the Matildas will set up camp in Melbourne, with the popularity of the team meaning that a venue like AAMI Park would appear to be simply too small to meet the bountiful demand that has been created around this team.
The federation already got a taste of this phenomenon in October, when the Matildas Olympic qualifier against the Phillippines was moved from Perth Oval to Optus Stadium due to a massive hunger for tickets.
“I think a lot had to be changed for us to get access to Marvel; we were looking at Kardinia Park,” said Walsh.
“We're thinking about a broader calendar all the way to an Asian Cup -- hopefully on home soil.
“For us, it's about making sure we utilize these home windows.
“Thinking about AAMI, there would have had to have been some management there but Marvel was the best fit in terms of getting the most participants and fans in the door
“We think holistically about the Matildas and the Socceroos now. The Matildas at a place where if you are to play it at AAMI – and we've had some fantastic games there – we're locking out too many fans for where we're at with this team right now.
“We sold 100,000 tickets in Perth, all indicators are suggesting that the demand will be there, particularly given that a lot of fans missed out during the Women's World Cup.
“We have great memories at this stadium now we've been able to build some football memories at Marvel, which I think is important as part of the decision making so we're very excited.”
Removed from the logistical aspect of it all, perhaps it’s fitting that Swift and the Matildas have entered each other’s orbit during this saga, given that the two have, on the face of it, transcended their fields and assumed the role of cultural touch points.
The impact of the Women’s World Cup, of course, requires no introduction, but after the sellout crowds, ratings records, and wall-to-wall domination of the zeitgeist that accompanied that campaign, Matilda was selected as the Australian National Dictionary Centre's word of 2023.
The side was also named 'Champions of the Year' at Marie Claire's 2023 Women of the Year Awards and Team of the Year at the GQ Awards — mainstream recognition a world away from the small, often marginalised bubble of Australian football.
Even the team’s TikTok account was recognised as TikTok Australia’s Sports Creator of the Year.
“They're uniquely local and global,” said Walsh. “The characters that we have on the team are playing in some of the best clubs around the world. The work we've done to grow the brand, and make sure that we facilitate who they are, in a marketing sense -- it's been very unique and authentic to them.
“However, when you have a strategy in place and invest, I think that all women's sports should be able to do this through deliberate strategy, investment, and partnerships.
“So the challenge for us right now, and everything's looking quite good, is keeping that momentum Post World Cup.
“We did it in Perth, Sam coming home, and so every single home window that we have, and we're looking to start to plan a bit further out now, to make sure that fans can buy tickets earlier and set up their travel plans.
“I don't think the Matilda's are some kind of exception to the rule. I actually think it's just from the work we did to grow.”
Image Credit: Football Australia
