DENVER — The Summit isn’t done peaking.

“Obviously, our first goal was to break the record for the largest (professional) women’s sporting event ever in the United States,” Rob Cohen, controlling owner of Summit FC soccer club, Denver’s first professional women’s sports franchise, told me Tuesday. “But our latest goal is to set a record that hopefully will never be broken. I hope that fans get excited and fill up the building.”

Don’t put it past them. Don’t put anything past them. Not this town. Not this team.

No one has gotten more than 40,091 into one building for a U.S. pro women’s soccer match. Or any professional women’s sporting event. Until Denver. Until next month.

The National Women’s Soccer League expansion franchise, which debuts next month in San Jose, just passed the 40,000 mark in ticket sales for its home debut at Empower Field on March 28. Which is where the history part comes in.

The NWSL record for attendance is 40,091, set last August by Bay FC at Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. That’s also the high-water mark for any pro women’s sporting event ever held in the U.S.

Say bye-bye, Bay. Tickets for March 28 are still available. Empower seats roughly 76,000 for football. We’re only just getting started here.

“My husband has friends here. They’re like, ‘Hey, can you get me tickets?’ I’m like, ‘You guys know I only get four only per game,'” Summit FC striker Ally Brazier (nee Watt), a multi-sport star at Pine Creek High School, recalled to me with a grin.

“So, I’m going to have to steal all my ticket requests from my teammates if they’re not using them. But there are so many people reaching out for tickets. Even people that I know flying in from different parts of the country saying, ‘Hey, everybody bought tickets to your home opener. I was like, ‘You live in Florida,’ or, ‘You live in Georgia.’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, I’m flying up to see you play. This is epic.'”

This is fun. Crazy fun. Summit FC held its first-ever media day Tuesday in Glendale, where they’ve moved preseason camp after a fortnight in sunny Santa Barbara. The team’s slated to train at Infinity Park through Feb. 13. They’ll open their inaugural season at Bay FC on March 14.

“(I was) really excited about the culture of the team and the way we had it together,” said Cohen, who flew to SoCal recently to see how camp was progressing. “They obviously haven’t been together for that long. Just the way they’ve come together and bought into what we’re trying to do and what the vision is we have for the franchise, it’s obviously a manifestation of all of the work we’ve put in over the last 12 months to make it happen.”

Cohen and the Summit ownership group — which includes Colorado icons Mikaela Shiffrin and Peyton Manning — aspire to only one class: First. All the way. Top to bottom. When Cohen hired GM Curt Johnson and coach Nick Cushing, he told them the exact same thing:

“Look, there aren’t many expansion teams in history that have won championships in their first year. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”

“No pressure,” I said to Cohen.

“No pressure,” he laughed.

The best record for a first-year NWSL team? Well, that’s Bay FC again, with an 11-1-14 mark in 2024. Two seasons ago, that club became the first NWSL team to reach the postseason as an expansion franchise.

“It’s no different than anything else in life,” Cohen continued. “If you have the capacity for excellence, why settle for normalcy?”

The new normal looks kinda awesome, though. The jersey — sorry, shirt — is coming soon. So are the alternates. Golden, Colo., native Lindsey Heaps, another Denver icon, is due to join the roster in June. She should be up to speed the time the Summit moves into their temporary stadium at Centennial in July.

The first-year club will play its home opener at Empower in March, then have two matches (April 25 and May 16) at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, home of the MLS Rapids, until the franchise’s Centennial HQ is ready for its July 3 debut.

Technically, part of the new park is already here, chilling in local warehouses, ready to be assembled. Other parts are in transit. Other parts are sitting in containers at the Port of Los Angeles, allegedly.

Thank you, tariffs.

“It’s no different than the game on the pitch — you’ve got to deal with what comes your way and what’s thrown at you,” Cohen said. “So (having) tariffs and having it done overseas was just part of what we need to do to get it (done).”

They need to keep several trains running smoothly right now — on about eight different tracks. And the designs for their permanent home at Santa Fe Yards, still slated for a March 2028 opening, are rolling ’round the bend.

“It’s moving quickly,” Cohen said. “Someone said to me the other day, ‘There are three things that go with projects: You can do ’em fast, you can do ’em cheap or you can do ’em high-quality, but you can only have two of the three.'”

Another laugh.

“So I tell people, ‘Well, we’re certainly doing it fast,'” he said, ”And we’re certainly doing it high-quality.'”

Talk is cheap. History ain’t. The view from the Summit gets better by the day.

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