By Allyn Tucker
Boston University News Service
In the fall of 2015, the timing was nothing short of perfect. With the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL)’s third season coming to a stable end, the United States Women’s National Team taking home a record-breaking third World Cup title over the summer, and the excitement for women’s soccer at an all-time high, the league announced its most anticipated expansion project: the Orlando Pride.
On paper, the team did everything right. With Orlando City SC of the MLS, the city had proven itself to be capable of fostering the perfect soccer environment. The men’s side averaged almost 33,000 fans each game during the 2015 Major League Soccer (MLS) season, with the team’s highest home attendance totalling over 62,000. With Orlando’s clear love of soccer, the Pride was expecting commercial success.
“The time is right for women’s professional soccer here in Central Florida, and we are excited to launch this new team for 2016,” said Orlando City founder Phil Rawlins. “We want to win championships and build one of the best women’s teams in world soccer.”
With the main goal of winning stated loud and clear, the Pride began building. Just six days after the announcement of the NWSL’s newest expansion team, the Orlando Pride announced its first ever signing: Alex Morgan. Easily the most recognizable face in women’s soccer, paired with her level of talent, Morgan’s announcement sparked excitement throughout the league.
“It’s special to be one of the first female footballers to represent this club,” Morgan said. “This city has embraced this sport, embraced this club and I’m really excited to be a part of it.”
In a city full of anticipation, the Orlando Pride played their first home match on April 23, 2016 in front of the league’s attendance record-breaking crowd of 23,403 people. Despite a victory that night against the Houston Dash, the team finished ninth out of ten teams in its inaugural season. Although this type of finish is not a surprise for an expansion team in its first season, the Pride continued to spike downwards before shooting to the top.
Though the team has been in existence only nine years, the Orlando Pride has cycled through four head coaches. This statistic alone doesn’t inspire peak performance among players in an ever-changing environment. The Pride struggled to find success on the field as much as in the front office, making the NWSL playoffs only once before 2024, losing in the first round in 2017.
Fan support and team performance, however different, is incredibly interconnected. With performance waning, attendance fell, and with lower attendance, player morale continued to drop. Although the team drew an average attendance of over 6,000 in 2017, the Orlando Pride failed to draw an average of over 5,000 fans per game in 2021 and 2022.
Despite the team’s struggles, the Pride was slowly building to become the team it is today. In 2017, the Pride signed perhaps their most important asset, Brazilian legend and arguably the best player of all time, Marta. The team continued to make moves behind the scenes, signing a slew of impressive players over the years. The last piece of the puzzle, however, was finding the right coach.
In 2023, the Orlando Pride began the ultimate rebuild under new coach Seb Hines, supported by the team’s new general manager, Haley Carter. Under Hines, the team finished seventh in the NWSL standings, missing the playoffs only by the league’s goal differential tiebreaker rule. On an upward trajectory, the Pride reignited the hope that they had lost during their seasons-long slump.
Fast forward to the present, and the Orlando Pride are, for lack of better words, unrecognizable. With the addition of Zambian star forward Barbra Banda, Hines proved his rebuild to be an overwhelming success. Led by Banda’s 13 goals and goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse’s 13 shutouts, the Pride tops the NWSL standings with 17 wins, six draws, and one loss on the season.
On September 28, over 17,000 fans gathered to watch the team defeat the Houston Dash. In quite the coincidence, the Pride defeated the Dash by a score of 3-1, the exact same score as their inaugural match in 2016. This time, however, the team has already established itself as the best in the league. In addition, for the first time since its inaugural season, the Orlando Pride’s season average for attendance once again surpasses 8,000 fans.
Permanently monumentalizing their success, the Orlando Pride clinched the 2024 NWSL Shield, which is annually awarded to the team with the best regular season record, this past Sunday. After nine seasons of fighting toward this major goal, the Shield win goes down in history as the club’s first ever trophy.
“It means so much,” said Marta, who scored one of the Pride’s two goals in the trophy-securing victory against the Washington Spirit. “We worked so hard… I waited so long for this moment.”
On Nov. 9, the 2024 NWSL playoffs kick-off. For the fans who have been paying attention, it comes with great joy, high expectations, and no surprise that the Orlando Pride have already secured the top seed in the competition.