Strike 3: Denver and the Colorado region is already home to more than 10 professional sports franchises. All are well supported, from the Denver Broncos all the way to the Grand Junction Jackalopes. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that when a successful professional sports league was looking to expand, they looked at the Mile High.
Already there’s pro football, basketball, baseball (including independent minor league clubs), two hockey and two lacrosse teams, plus pro soccer within our borders. The only thing missing has been a women’s professional sports team. That’s scheduled to change soon with the arrival of a brand new expansion franchise in the National Women’s Soccer League in time for the 2026 season. Denver beat out Cleveland and Cincinnati to become the 16th team in the NWSL. The owners/backers of Denver’s bid reportedly paid the highest expansion fee – $110 million – ever for a women’s pro sports team. They mean business.
As of now, the new franchise doesn’t have a name, any front office people, coaches, players or even a place to play. Reports say they’ll build a new soccer stadium somewhere in the Metro. They have plenty of time to work on building a competitive roster.
Those reports also say the new Denver franchise has already received more than 5,000 season ticket requests. So when they build it, fans will come.
This is all good news for a region that has proven that there’s no such thing (at least within these borders) as a sports market being over-saturated. But it leaves a head-scratching question:
Why hasn’t the WNBA put a team in the Mile High? Fact: basketball is more popular than soccer around here. The Denver Nuggets are uber-successful, and Ball Arena could certainly handle a new summer tenant.
Women’s professional basketball is enjoying unprecedented success and popularity all over America. The jolt the sport received from Caitlyn Clark last spring and summer sent rating and revenues soaring. While the NWSL – which has been around and flown under the radar for more than a decade – is doing just fine, it can’t sniff the popularity of the WNBA. When was the last time you saw women’s pro soccer highlights on Sportscenter?
There hasn’t been any buzz about the WNBA expanding, but if the NWSL is getting over $100 million for an expansion franchise, what could the WNBA command? Aren’t there any wealthy wannabe owners or groups that believe women’s hoops could succeed here? Perhaps the salaries that the top women’s hoops players are now commanding has chased away potential new owners?
It’s hard to come up with another reason. There’s an abundance of extraordinary women’s basketball players available today. Some great American talent is going overseas to find a place to continue their professional basketball careers.
The zealots don’t want to hear this, but soccer – the most popular sport on almost every other part of the planet – for whatever reason, remains a niche sport in Colorado and in America. Basketball is arguably the second biggest of the big four pro sports. It’s tough to wrap your arms (no hands of course) around the idea of a new women’s pro soccer team being more successful in Denver, Colorado than an expansion WNBA team (which already has a place to play.)
When the new soccer team begins play – wherever that is, whenever that is – they will draw big crowds right away. How big those crowds will remain over the next half decade remains to be seen. With solid marketing, especially to the youth soccer crowd, they could do quite well. But if we’re looking at trends, that success would pale in comparison to what a WNBA franchise would do in Denver.
What are we missing?
