The University of Hawaii is going to Australia to play football this month, but the multi-faceted invasion that surrounds the game is about so much more.

While the centerpiece is the Aug. 26 (Hawaii time) game between UH and California that kicks off the 2016 season for all of college football, the bigger picture is focused, as UH athletic director David Matlin has put it, on, “planting the flag Down Under.”

Matlin said, “I think the Australia trip affords us the opportunity to expand the visibility of not just athletics but the academic side of the house and to recruit not just for athletics but for the general student body. We’re also working with the Hawaii Tourism Authority to help expand their efforts.”

But while UH has its own designs on a niche, athletically and academically, so, too, do Cal, the Pac-12 Conference and the HTA, who all seek to carve out or expand theirs in an increasingly popular and competitive Australian market.

Oceania, as it classifies Australia and New Zealand, is the HTA’s third-largest international market after Japan and Canada.

Meanwhile, for the Pac-12, which five years ago embarked on “Pac-12 Global,” a primarily Pacific Rim initiative, the game is part of what Commissioner Larry Scott has called, “the Pac-12’s mission to use the power of sport to advance our schools’ reach around the world…”

At last month’s Pac-12 Football Media Day, Scott said, “With Pac-12 Global, the conference and its membership are using sports to push beyond the traditional horizons, and we look forward to continued growth and success.”

As an example, a Pac-12 All-Star Men’s Basketball Team completed a tour of Australia last month, promoted by TLA Worldwide, the organizers of the UH-Cal game.

The UH-Cal game is a Golden Bears’ “home” game and it is being aired as part of the Pac-12’s TV package by ESPN. And Stanford coach David Shaw told the Associated Press, “There are opportunities for other Pac-12 schools possibly.”

While UH was in the forefront of converting Australian athletes in other sports into college football players — defensive lineman Colin Scotts, who played in Manoa from 1983-85 and went on to the NFL, was one of the first on scholarship — punters from Down Under have become a recent growth industry.

Buoyed by the example of UH’s Scott Harding (2011-14), a half dozen played in Division I last year, from Oregon State to Michigan and Memphis. The last three winners of the Ray Guy Award, presented to the top college punter, have gone to Aussies.

Head football coach Nick Rolovich and offensive line coach Chris Naeole were in Australia earlier this summer for a series of clinics, seeking to add to UH’s ties.

Matlin said UH plans to take coaches from as many as 10 sports, not just football, for recruiting in Australia. “We’re also targeting sports, like basketball and softball, where we think we have a chance to compete (for recruits),” Matlin said.

Other campus officials are also going with an eye toward increasing enrollment from Australia, which numbered just 20 at Manoa in 2015, according to school spokesman.

Promoters are covering travel and accommodations for “up to 200 people” in the official UH travel party, according to the contract.

Those opportunities are why UH officials said they agreed to take the game despite a scheduling gauntlet that subjects the team to 25,000 air miles in the first four games, more than most NFL teams will travel in the regular season this year.

Meanwhile, HTA has sought to make its pitch with tailgate parties and a pep rally around meetings with tour operators and travel industry members. They will also hand out 1,000 ti leaves and some UH jerseys. Chef Russell Siu will prepare Hawaii cuisine for a gathering of about 50 members of the Australian travel industry.

Leslie Dance, HTA vice president of marketing and product development said, “The (tourism) numbers are up for Australia and we want to keep it that way.”

Last year, there were 333,998 visitors from Australia, a 7.8 percent increase from the previous year. HTA said they spent, on average, 9.37 days in Hawaii.

The window for exposure on the game opened late last month with Australia’s popular morning TV program, the “Today Show,” and sports program “Wide World of Sports” having filmed segments at UH and elsewhere in the state.

Dance said, the game “Is a win/win for both of us because it gets us exposure for Hawaii in an important market and it gets them (UH) exposure for recruiting.”