The NWSL's 16th team finally has a name: Denver Summit FC. The name emerged as the favorite not only among the ownership group, but among fans who were asked to vote on six different options in recent months.
"I think the at-large view, and really a through line for this club that continues with the naming, is that this has been a crowdsourced name," team president Jen Millet told ESPN after joking that they can finally stop calling themselves "Denver NWSL," as they have since they were announced in January.
Denver will play its first season in 2026. Mountains play a central role in the entire branding, as expected from a state defined by the Rocky Mountains.
The crest depicts green mountains -- sloped at a 26-degree angle to denote the year the team begins playing -- with white snowcaps under a red sky and orange sun.
The nickname "Summit" beat out Denver Peak FC, Colorado 14ers FC, Denver Elevate FC, Denver FC, and Denver Gold FC.
Ownership did make an executive decision with the name, however: The official fan ballot listed "Colorado Summit FC" as the option.
Millet said that the decision to ultimately use "Denver" as the geographic identifier came down to honoring the team's plan to build a 14,500-seat stadium in the city, which is set to open in 2028. It would only be the second stadium specifically built for an NWSL.
"The 'Denver' piece, for us, being the second team in the NWSL with a purpose-driven stadium -- we really wanted to honor Denver as a part of that and make sure that people knew that that's happening in Denver," Millet said.
"It's a city stadium. And so that felt really good to us."
Other professional sports teams in and around the city are split between the use of "Denver" and "Colorado."
Denver Summit FC's decision to allow fans to vote on the team's name stood in stark contrast with the original process of the NWSL's other 2026 NWSL expansion team in Boston.
That team, now known as Boston Legacy FC after a rebrand earlier this year, originally launched its brand in 2024 as BOS Nation FC -- a name derived largely from a small, private group of decision makers.
It was universally panned, and the "Too Many Balls" marketing campaign that accompanied it was quickly retracted.
Millet, a Colorado native who helped launch 2024 NWSL expansion team Bay FC, joined the Denver franchise deep into its naming process and wasn't involved in early conversations, but she said that other approaches did not influence the franchise's desire to give fans a voice in naming the team.
"I really believe the intention of this ownership group was, they look at this club as a community asset," Millet said.
"And not just in name; they really want to be true to this movement that brought the club here. So, they felt like they wanted to get it right, and in order to get it right, they needed those voices in the room. I think that is really what the driver was, not really a best practice that they could take from somewhere else."
Millet said the Denver and Boston expansion teams have a great relationship and share best practices as they navigate similar things for the first time. That is consistent, she said, with a "super collaborative spirit on the business side" around the league.
Fans played a role in more than just the Denver Summit FC name.
The team kept the deep green primary color that it had been using in its temporary brand based on feedback from fans. The green and white, the team said, is a nod to the classic Colorado license plate.
Branding for both Boston and Denver prominently features green (in two different shades), which has not previously been the primary color of a team in the NWSL's 12-year history.
The sandstone red sky in Denver's crest is "a nod to the iconic red rock formations found throughout the state," including the famous Red Rocks just outside of Denver.
Millet, who spent over six years with the Golden State Warriors prior to her time in the NWSL, said she's anxious to see fan feedback.
"Ultimately, the win for me is going to be that the fans who were really a part of bringing this club to life are excited by it and are really happy to wear it on their hat, on their shirt," Millet said. "That's what is going to mean the most."