Denver Soccer Coalition Using World Cup Fever to Campaign for Pro Women’s Team

“The fact that we don’t have a professional women’s sports team shocks me, and we just want to change that,” says one of the group’s co-leaders, Jordan Angeli, who went to Green Mountain High School in Lakewood and later played pro on the East Coast. She’s now back in the Centennial State as a Major League Soccer and National Women’s Soccer League analyst.

Angeli is joined by Ben Hubbard — founder of the Parsyl insurance company and former member of the Obama administration — and sports executive Tom Dunmore, who currently works for Major League Cricket. Dunmore reached out to Angeli on Twitter over the winter to gauge her interest; from there, he connected Hubbard and Angeli, and the three decided to launch For Denver FC to coincide with the FIFA Women’s World Cup, which starts on July 20.

Angeli brings soccer expertise to the table, while Dunmore is well-versed in what it takes to start and run a professional sports team. Hubbard, meanwhile, has had a varied career and plenty of experience mobilizing the public around important causes.

“I didn’t anticipate taking on professional women’s soccer,” Hubbard says. But after his two young daughters began playing soccer in the Park Hill neighborhood, he noticed that there weren’t any women’s pro teams for them to watch. He was convinced that Denver could do something to change that.

Colorado has produced plenty of women’s soccer stars over the years, including United States Women’s National Soccer Team captain Lindsey Horan, who hails from Golden, and phenom Sophia Smith, who’s from Windsor. Horan plays professionally in France and did a stint with the Portland Thorns in the National Women’s Soccer League; Smith currently plays for the Thorns.

According to Angeli, there are twenty players in the twelve-team NWSL from Colorado.

“[They] grew up here and played in these club systems and got the competition that they needed to develop into really good players, and it’s not being tapped into,” she says. “We just don’t have the path to pro, and that is one of the big reasons why we’re pushing for Colorado, is because the richness of soccer culture, the richness of soccer athletes here, is just something special, and I feel like it’s about time we engage in a way that allows them to have that end point.”

Angeli was a star high school soccer player who ended up playing professionally in Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York. She says part of what’s driven her over the years is thinking of the opportunities she wishes she’d had and trying to create them for other athletes.

“I never got to play in my hometown,” she says. “I never got to play in front of some of those fans or my family and friends who helped raise me and turn me into the person and the player that I was. I want to give the players now the experience that they get to be proud of where they came from.”

Even for those without a personal connection to women’s soccer, Hubbard says it makes sense for Denver to be home to the next pro soccer team. After exploring the potential to make that happen, he adds, “what I concluded was that there wasn’t a group of people who were ready to take the steps and overcome some of the challenges,” such as raising capital and finding a place to play. “They take some dedication and work to pull off, but we’ve got those skills and that motivation, and they’re all solvable.”

For Denver FC wants to tap into Denver’s championship sports culture and use its momentum to build a true community-led team. Colorado’s NBA and NHL teams have found success recently, with the Denver Nuggets winning the NBA Championship in June and the Colorado Avalanche winning the NHL championship in 2022. The Denver Broncos have won three Super Bowls, the most recent of which was in 2016.

“We’re a championship sports town,” Hubbard notes, “but we have no professional women’s sports, which is a shame.”

The Colorado Alpenglow — a pro women’s ultimate Frisbee team founded in 2022 — is technically the state’s first professional female sports franchise. The Western Ultimate League member gained plenty of support from local businesses over the course of its first season this year, and Hubbard believes a women’s soccer squad could follow suit.

Not only is youth girls’ soccer popular in Denver, but the city also has a large Hispanic and Latino community that watches the sport regularly, Hubbard points out. 

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An example of merchandise for the For Denver FC campaign.

Courtesy For Denver FC

Plus, women’s soccer stands for much more than athletic prowess.

“Particularly when you look at what the former and current soccer stars have done to fight for equality and equal pay, to fight for investment, there’s been so much ground covered,” Hubbard explains. “We really do see this as a public asset that we want to build.”

So far, the public has responded well.

Angeli reports that just a few short days after For Denver FC announced its intentions on July 11, she’d already received numerous messages of encouragement from people in the NWSL and others in Colorado who want to help get the new team going.

“It’s been incredible and overwhelming,” she says. “We knew Denver was a soccer city, but we wanted people to prove it. We’re going to prove it through this groundswell of momentum.”

The sidelines of his daughter’s youth soccer matches have always buzzed about a professional women’s team, Hubbard says, and For Denver FC is tapping into that existing desire to make it happen.

“It’s combining our superpowers and finding ones in the community,” he tells Westword. “We have some investors and are growing that investor pool to make this happen, but there’s a lot of work left to be done to put this together.”

For Denver FC won’t be the name of the final team, with future investors getting to choose its moniker and logo with input from the community. The group is currently looking for additional investors and has already had conversations with potential owners — including one who is conducting a feasibility study on Denver to determine if it truly is the right place for a new pro women’s soccer team.

It’s too early to say whether a franchise would have any affiliation with the Colorado Rapids, the local MLS team owned by Stan Kroenke, Angeli says.

By the end of 2023, For Denver FC plans to submit a bid to join with the NWSL or the newly formed USL Super League, which is set to kick off in 2024.

People can show their support for the effort at the official For Denver FC launch event, taking place on Friday, July 21, at Number Thirty Eight, 3560 Chestnut Place. It’s a free watch party for the USWNT’s first World Cup game against Vietnam and will run from 6 to 10 p.m.

“Part of what we’re excited about is that everyone gets activated around the Women’s World Cup, and then it ends and there’s no place to put that energy,” Hubbard says. “Now we’ve got something for the community to put all that energy into, which is bringing this club to Denver.”