• April 6, 2010

In its second season, Women's Professional Soccer is touting its Kick-Off Week in April with building-side projections featuring star players Abby Wambach (Washington Freedom), Natasha Kai (Sky Blue FC) and Megan Rapinoe (Chicago Red Stars).

The large-format projections will be in Washington D.C., New Jersey and Chicago for three nights leading up to their home openers on April 10, April 11 and April 17, respectively.

The campaign, via Pereira & O'Dell, also includes TV, social media, out of home, online advertising and media planning with a "Defend Your Turf" tagline. The league says the tag will be used as part of its larger "See Extraordinary" brand message throughout the season.

Following its debut, the campaign will be used to support this year's WPS All-Star Game presented by the U.S. Coast Guard and the WPS Championship, the league's two national events.

An interactive element urges fans to "Defend Your Turf" by texting messages of team support to a number that puts those messages onto the projections. Those who text get an auto-reply text for ticket offers for their home teams.

The 30-second TV spot will begin airing on Fox Soccer Channel on April 11 during the first "WPS Sunday on FSC" broadcast.

The league says it has 250,000 Twitter followers, a Facebook following and player tweets from the sidelines. --Karl Greenberg