How the Orlando Pride is winning the #NWSLChallengeCup

Excitement turned to frustration for the NWSL’s Orlando Pride on June 22, as five days before the start of the NWSL Challenge Cup in Utah, the team withdrew due to positive COVID-19 tests within the squad and staff.

While the distinctive purple of the Pride and their USWNT stars will not be on display, the digital team has turned a negative into a positive — transforming the Pride’s social media channels into a #PrideStan account. That’s right, they’re not just supporting one team, but all eight remaining clubs.

The #PrideStan army has used fun, creative GIFs and strong imagery to support every team as matches are played worldwide across CBS, CBS All-Access, CBS Sports Network, and Twitch, with incredible engagement across platforms. The results have been a huge win.

Using our Global Ranking, which allows you to benchmark your total engagements across platforms against teams in your own league or customized entity groups, we can see the Pride have the second-most engagements of all NWSL teams from June 26 through July 1, with more than 260,000. And, their average engagement per post is also second among NWSL teams.

Since the start of the tournament, the Pride have achieved three of their top 15 most-engaged days on social this year, topping 38,000 engagements across platforms on June 27, June 30, and July 1.

Usually, the unabashed cheering for all teams is something we take joy in at Blinkfire, but for the remaining three weeks of the NWSL Challenge Cup presented by P&G and Secret, the Orlando Pride’s accounts are a must-follow as live soccer returns in North America! We could all use someone like the Pride hyping us up on a daily basis.