Minnesota Aurora launches new drive, aiming for 7,000 more team owners

Minnesota Aurora spent the past few years looking for one owner, someone with deep enough pockets who the club could afford the ballooning franchise fees to join the NWSL, the top women’s professional league in the country.

After they pulled out of the running for that franchise, they’re now looking for something different: 7,000 more owners, to keep their current franchise going.

Thursday, the club launched a new community ownership drive, one intended less as a quest for something greater, and more as an effort to simply keep things running.

The Aurora raised $1 million in their first go-round in 2021, from 3,080 owners. That money funded the first three years of the club, and allowed them to pull off a well-run, well-attended, well-regarded three seasons as a “pre-professional” organization in the USL W League. Even in 2024, the number of American soccer clubs that have had similar success over the years is vanishingly small.

Aurora explains on its website, in the FAQ section for the new ownership drive: “Our original $1 million was intended to get us through December 2024, however we have fallen short by a few months and this WeFunder [ownership drive] effort is part of continuing operations for the future.

While our sponsorship, ticketing and merchandise revenue helps defer a lot of our expenses it isn’t enough to continue to operate the team at the high level that we have established.”

Their goal this time around is even bigger: 10,000 owners, for the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

It’s all part of the team’s larger strategy, as the American women’s soccer landscape continues to develop: Keep the team’s options open.

It’s not at all clear what the NWSL’s growth curve will end up looking like. The USL just launched its own professional league this fall, the USL Super League; it remains to be seen whether this will end up being a viable option for Aurora, as well.

“It’s a little bit like when my kids were in high school and they would complain about studying and I would say, ‘If you keep your grades up, you have all the choices in the world — but if your grades stink, you’ve absolutely minimized your opportunities,’ ” said co-founder Andrea Yoch. “And so what we want to do is stay strong and healthy so that we ... continue to have all the opportunities, and that could look like a lot of different things.”

First, though, the Aurora have to keep things running. And to do so, they’re looking to build what they’re calling the largest community ownership base in American soccer.