Been waiting around, and it isn't happening. So we might as well start it here. First up, Orlando Pride preseason schedule: 2016 Pride Preseason Schedule Saturday, March 19: At Eastern Florida State College, 3 p.m. (free to public) Tuesday, March 22: vs. University of Florida, TBA (closed to public) Wednesday, March 30: vs. University of South Florida, TBA (closed to public) Saturday, April 2: vs. Florida State University, TBA (closed to public) Most interesting? No game against University of Central Florida, the closest university and the university that produced Michelle Akers.
I could see UCF replace EFSC next year. Playing EFSC this year is probably part of the whole OCB deal they've made.
I would guess the main reason is that the public won't really pay for them, but if they open them up then they need to provide security and other people to manage the event. So they will open them once in a while, but not typically. I would expect that friends and family of both teams as well as the press "attend" the match.
Post practice interview with Sermanni on their Facebook page. Interesting how much media is there for NWSL preseason chat. https://www.facebook.com/ORLPride/
For this season anyway, I think the Pride will benefit from being in the same facility as the MLS club. I'm not sure how their training schedules overlap, but I would have to imagine that reporters there for the MLS club will stick around a bit or get there early if they can catch both coaches and/or a few players. Next year they will train 45 minutes apart by car, so media coverage will be a bit tougher for both teams.
Aha! We have a subforum now! @Blaze20 you can move posts/threads, right? There's this thread and several in the Expansion subforum.
I know in the other thread I said it was nice that the Pride would have a training facility to themselves, but now I'm starting to wonder about that. I would imagine any good facility would have the space/resources to house two or three teams working out, doing drills, etc. at or close to the same time. Aside from having a shiny new training facility available to them, why do you think they decided to split up the men's and women's teams in training?
This answer turned out much longer than I expected, but I have been exposed to a lot of the reasoning over the last several months, so... A few reasons. They actually have three teams, with OCB (USL) being the other. The Seminole facility is a nice facility, but there is no room to expand even more. When they moved in and spent money, they weren't really thinking there would be USL and NWSL teams this soon, if at all. On top of that, the academy teams are spread across three or four facilities right now because there aren't enough fields in one place so they needed to alleviate that situation. The landscape of soccer changed quickly for the club. Obviously it makes more sense to have the MLS and USL teams in the same facility, as they will essentially be sharing rosters to some degree. But they also want the upper level academy teams sharing the same facilities so they can train with the professional clubs. With the smaller rosters in the NWSL and no real "minor league" team, it may be more important for the women to keep the amatuer teams close so they can call someone up if needed. So that explains the need for new facilities. The other thing that happened is that the Seminole facility is apparently better than many other MLS club facilities. But some clubs have recently expanded their facilities and are superior to OCSC's. OC wants to be at or very near the top, so new facilities were needed to keep up with the MLS arms race. Including the women would be doable, but it would mean spending even more money on the new place. The team just spend millions in Seminole and I believe they gave Seminole county some guarantees. This way they use out of their money in Seminole and keep (at least to some degree) Seminole happy. The good news for the NWSL team is that while they won't get the best facilities around, they will get facilities that are far and away better than what other NWSL teams have. And they get the girls academy teams and any other reserve teams at the same facility, so it works out well except for perhaps less media exposure.
They also have big fish, small pond going for them. If they draw well by NWSL standards the sports media will make the trip because there just isnt a lot to cover there
Went to the grocery store today and saw this. I know Orlando City and Publix already have a sponsorship in place but to have Publix (at least those in Central FL) advertising the Pride is huge.