Sweet Sixteen: What to Know About Denver's Upcoming NWSL Team

Denver officially welcomed a new professional women’s sports team to the city on January 30, with owners and supporters crowding Number 38 in the RiNo Arts District to celebrate being named the latest city to join the National Women’s Soccer League.

The team will begin play for the 2026 NWSL season as the league’s sixteenth team, and the ownership group has committed to privately funding a new stadium and training facility to serve as the home for the team.

NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman said awarding expansion teams is one of her favorite parts of being commissioner, because she gets to learn about the fabric and passion of each city.

“Seeing it mature over the last year-plus and watching it come together has been a thrill,” Berman told media at the celebration. “Having the chance to meet the mayor and the governor and see the public and private support for this bid, but I'll also just give a shout out to the literally thousands of postcards — I was sent thousands — by the girls of this community who play soccer and want to aspire to play professionally. And they deserve it.”

The ownership group of the team will be led by IMA Financial Group CEO Rob Cohen, a longtime sports booster in metro Denver. He will be joined by Project Level, led by Mellody Hobson — an entrepreneur who also owns a minority stake in the Denver Broncos — and former Washington Commanders president Jason Wright.

“This is simply awesome,” Cohen said at the January 30 event. “This has been a long time coming for a lot of us that have worked tirelessly on this for not only just a couple years, but literally for decades. I'm so glad there's young people in the audience to watch this and tape this, and we're looking forward to having you play for our team."

Cohen, Hobson and Wright will be joined by minority owners Jon-Erik Borgen and Kaia Borgen Moritz, who own FirstTracks Sports Ventures, as well as Neelima Joshi, Dhiren Jhaveri and Molly Coors. Cohen will serve as the team’s governor and Hobson will be the alternate governor.

“Women's sports are at a generational shift,” Hobson said. “We're watching it in real time, and we have a front-row seat for what is happening. We want to be a part of elevating women to their rightful place in the pantheon of sports.”

The group will pay $110 million expansion fee to the NWSL, the largest investment to ever establish a professional women’s sports team. However, Cohen and Hobson were clear that while they want to elevate women’s athletics, they see this team is a business investment that they expect to grow.
“We are convinced a decade, two decades from now we're going to look back and say we are so glad we own these teams, and this will seem like the best bargain price that you could possibly imagine,” Hobson said. “The math is astounding: The viewership is up, the fandom is up, the sponsorships are up, the media rights are up.”

Berman said the expansion fee was only part of the NWSL’s decision to give Denver a team. She said the league considers the market, ownership and facilities when deciding where to award teams.

Plus, the NWSL knew Denver wanted a team badly.

Supporters have called for a professional women's soccer team in Denver for years, formalizing that demand with the For Denver FC effort in 2023. The group showed the excitement around the World Cup as evidence that Denver's soccer fans were ready for a team.

For Denver FC was created by Lakewood-born Jordan Angeli, a Major League Soccer and NWSL analyst based in Denver who once played professionally; Parsyl insurance company founder Ben Hubbard; Ton Dunmore, a former member of the Obama administration who has a background in sports marketing; and venture capitalist Nicole Glaros. While the group won’t be owners, they were present at the celebration and will collaborate with the team on community outreach efforts.

The team's governor shared some big dreams, promising to build a culture that is inclusive of the entire Denver community as well as a winning culture.

“The best players in the world want to play in Denver, Colorado,” Cohen said of his vision. “The best coaches in the world want to coach in Denver, Colorado. The best executives want to work here. We have the best fans. We have the best fan experience that we can possibly create, and, maybe just as importantly, we have the best facilities that are designed for, and built specifically for, women.”

Cohen said the team is in “discussions with a number of jurisdictions around our city and state,” but Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said that he hopes the team will land in Denver.

“We are deeply committed that this will be a purpose-built women's stadium in the city and County of Denver and will be accessible to neighborhoods where folks can walk and bike and easily approach that in a comprehensive community-based development,” the mayor said at the event. “We see our role as helping find that site and also to facilitate the access to that site to make sure that whatever beautiful stadium they build is easy for folks to get to.”
Johnston teased announcements in the coming months related to the stadium. He and Governor Jared Polis both cited the proven women’s soccer talent pipeline in the state — and their own daughters who love soccer — as inspirations for wanting a team to come to Denver.

“I have always thought that this is one of the best sports cities in America,” Johnston said. “We could never really be America's best sports city without a professional women's sports franchise. We knew that's what was missing.”

Colorado has produced high-level professional women’s soccer players over the years, including United States Women’s National Soccer Team stars Lindsey Horan, who hails from Golden; Sophia Smith, who is from Windsor; and Mallory Swanson, who grew up in Highlands Ranch.

“What we're tired of doing here, Commissioner, is girls grow up here, women train here, and they go off to play for other teams,” Polis said to Berman at the event. “We want to make sure we have a place for our home-growing talent to excel at the professional level, and, of course, attract people from across the country and across the world to play here in Denver.”

Cohen said the team’s facility will be a huge factor in attracting talent.

“The studies show that today facilities are being built and designed still in the shadow of men's sports as opposed to being built for what the needs are for women,” Cohen said. “We're spending a lot of time and a lot of money to invest in trying to create that facility, again, that will be unique and different for women — to create a stadium that will be unique and different.”

Cohen also confirmed the franchise wants the stadium to be at the center of a mixed-use development, like what the Kroenke family is currently building around Ball Arena, rather than a standalone project.

Keeping Denver culture and the Colorado landscape in mind will be front-and-center as the franchise works to develop a stadium, team colors, name and logo. Though the team is using evergreen-colored branding right now, the ownership group has yet to formalize the details of the team’s identity.

“We only get one chance to get the name and the colors and the logo right,” Cohen tells Westword, saying the team plans to work with the community “so that we can have that discussion and make sure that when we do come out with a name, and colors and everything we nail it.”

The community is sure to be invested: Angeli confirmed that the team already has 2,000 deposits for season tickets — and Denver has high expectations for what they'll see when the team hits the field.

“I will tell you, Rob and Mellody, I already instructed our team at [the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure] to reserve downtown for championship parades in 2027 and 2028,” Johnston said.