Denver Summit FC hopes its first home match is historic.
The NWSL expansion club announced Monday that its inaugural home opener will be played at Empower Field on March 28, 2026. The Saturday match, against a to-be-announced opponent, will be at noon with broadcast details to be revealed at a later date. The 2025 NWSL season starts a couple of weeks earlier, and Denver FC will play its first few games in franchise history on the road.
Summit FC is shooting for a sellout at the 76,125-seat stadium, but the club doesn’t have to reach that number to break the single-game attendance record in NWSL history — 40,091 for a match at Oracle Park in San Francisco.
“That’s our ambition,” Summit FC president Jen Millet said. “As we plan for this match, I think we’re cautiously optimistic. … That (NWSL attendance record) was just set this past summer, so we have our sights on that initial target. Colorado and fans in the community here continue to surprise us, and continue to support us, so once we pass that milestone, I think the sky’s the limit.”
The club’s season ticket deposit list is currently at about 16,000. Members of Club 5280, Summit FC’s membership program, will have first dibs on buying tickets for the match at Empower Field.
Millet said the team’s temporary venue, a 12,000-seat modular stadium in Centennial, is expected to be completed in April. If it’s not ready for Summit FC’s second home match following the March 28 debut in Denver, the club has contingency plans.
“We won’t get the rest of the schedule until January, and at that point we’ll match that up against the construction timelines and see where we’re at,” Millet said. “But the goal is that all our matches after this one at Empower will be out in Centennial. If you can think of (other local stadiums), we’re talking to them (as a back-up possibility).”
After the Summit play their first couple of seasons in Centennial, the club plans to move into a new, 14,500-seat stadium at Santa Fe Yards (Broadway and I-25 in Denver) in 2028. That project on the site of the former Gates Rubber Co., which will involve $70 million in tax dollars, was approved by an 11-1 vote by the Denver City Council in May. But more approvals remain ahead to keep the stadium on track for construction.