Denver Summit Women

Nick Cushing took the job in August 2025, and his first competitive fixture was a 2-0 win over NJ/NY Gotham FC on 25 March 2026.

Three days later came the part Denver will remember. With no ground of its own ready, the club staged its home debut at Empower Field at Mile High Stadium and drew 63,004 spectators — the largest crowd for a single match in NWSL history, past the 40,091 Bay FC had held. Denver had never had a professional women's team in any sport before that spring.

The franchise was awarded in December 2024 and admitted to the league on 30 January 2025, at an expansion fee of $110 million. The name arrived later, in July, out of a supporter poll that drew more than 50,000 responses; the organised support calls itself The 14ers, after the state's highest peaks. Rob Cohen leads the ownership group, which added the former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning in June 2025.

Home for now is the 12,000-seat ground at the CommonSpirit Performance Center in Centennial, a temporary arrangement for 2026 and 2027 — afterwards it will be cut down to 4,000 seats and handed to the Cherry Creek school district. The permanent 14,500-seat Denver Summit FC Stadium is going up in the Santa Fe Yards district and is due in 2028.

Abby Smith, signed from Houston Dash, made the league's Best XI for March in that opening month. Lindsey Heaps, the United States captain, put pen to paper in January 2026 and joined over the summer.

The fixtures against Utah Royals FC are being built up as the first derby the Rocky Mountain region has had. There is no title in the cabinet yet, and after a debut season played across borrowed grounds, the near task is a settled home.