{"id":193403,"date":"2026-03-16T12:37:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T12:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/193403\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T12:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T12:37:19","slug":"orlando-pride-hampered-by-thunderstorms-in-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/193403\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Pride hampered by thunderstorms in season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/03\/15\/nwsl-season-openers-draw-well-in-san-jose-dc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/03\/15\/nwsl-season-openers-draw-well-in-san-jose-dc\/\">NWSL\u2019s season-opening weekend<\/a> continued Sunday with the Seattle Reign defeating the Orlando Pride at Inter&amp;Co Stadium before a crowd of 16,320. The match saw \u201chumid temperatures at kickoff\u201d and an \u201capproximate three-hour delay due to thunderstorms.\u201d The two clubs went \u201cthrough a yo-yo of warming up and seeking shelter due to lightning strikes in the area, including one bolt that seemed right behind the stadium.\u201d Many fans in attendance did not \u201creturn to the stands after the three-hour delay\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/sports\/reign\/reign-get-revenge-on-pride-win-season-opener-in-brutal-conditions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/sports\/reign\/reign-get-revenge-on-pride-win-season-opener-in-brutal-conditions\/\">SEATTLE TIMES, 3\/15<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">Meanwhile, Angel City FC won 4-0 over the Chicago Stars before 16,813 at BMO Stadium. Angel City\u2019s \u201clong-suffering fans certainly still need to be convinced things have changed\u201d because the crowd on a \u201cbeautiful sun-splashed afternoon at BMO Stadium was the smallest ever for an Angel City opener.\u201d The performance was the \u201cmost dominant in club history\u201d and the margin of victory matched Angel City\u2019s largest ever. It was also the team\u2019s first season-opening win since 2022 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/sports\/soccer\/angel-city-fc\/story\/2026-03-15\/angel-city-opens-season-shutout-win-chicago\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/sports\/soccer\/angel-city-fc\/story\/2026-03-15\/angel-city-opens-season-shutout-win-chicago\">L.A. TIMES, 3\/15<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NWSL\u2019s season-opening weekend continued Sunday with the Seattle Reign defeating the Orlando Pride at Inter&amp;Co Stadium before&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[54741,8216,139,141,140,2062,22053],"class_list":["post-193403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-fan-experience","tag-nwsl","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-soccer","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}