Rooting for Minnesota Aurora women's soccer before it even plays a first match

Nothing in sports is better than the underdog story, the tale of improbable ambition rewarded. This is such a story.

On Sept. 13, 2020, a bunch of soccer fans and supporters of women's sports met outside of Urban Growler and Bang Brewing in St. Paul. They wore masks and sat socially distanced at picnic tables. Nine emerged believing they could and should start a women's soccer team.

They joined the USL W League, and in a recent rush of activity have hired a coaching staff, signed a famous goalkeeper and a local standout, found a home and chosen a name.

Nicole Lukic will coach the Minnesota Aurora; her assistants will be Jennie Clark and Jen Larrick. The first player signed was Sarah Fuller, the Vanderbilt goaltender who in 2020 became the first woman to play in a Power Five college football game, as a placekicker. The Aurora also signed former Gophers defender Makenzie Langdok of St. Michael.

The pre-professional team will begin play this May at TCO Stadium on the Minnesota Vikings' campus in Eagan, a flashy venue for a minor league franchise still in the process of inventing itself.

"We really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into,'' team president Andrea Yoch said.

The dream of the team's nine founders became reality so rapidly that this week, talking about the franchise, Yoch sounded almost as breathless as she was busy.

"The community ownership model is what makes this special,'' she said.

Yoch has worked most of her adult life in Twin Cities media and sports. As women's sports rise in popularity and visibility, she wanted to help start a team that would embody the best ideals of modern sport: equality, equity and accessibility.

That bet paid off almost immediately. On Aug. 31, the team began selling community ownership shares. They set a maximum on investments at $1 million total.

"We really weren't sure we could get there,'' Yoch said. "Within the first few days, so many people were investing from across the country that we realized that we were going to hit our goal. Fast forward to December, which was the close of the investment period, and we actually ended up leaving people stranded.

"There were people e-mailing us, asking, 'Can't we still invest?'. But this is an SEC transaction; it's very heavily regulated, and we couldn't just say, 'Oh, just kidding, we want to do $1.5 million now.'"

Yoch said the Aurora has 3,080 investors from "48 states, eight countries, two military bases and one embassy. We also have a very active owner in Denmark who is constantly tweeting at us. So we shipped a scarf to Denmark.''

The investors engaged in ranked-choice voting to choose the team name, and the logos.

"Minnesota Aurora was the runaway winner,'' Yoch said. "It's also one of the most beautiful crests and designs in sports. Less than two weeks ago, we announced the team name. We had pop-up shops around the Twin Cities and we sold out of everything we had. We were taking the clothes off the mannequins and selling them. We have some amazing minority businesses in the Twin Cities printing a lot of merchandise for us right now.''

For Yoch, the Aurora is about much more than sports. She has found a like-minded group of founders, fans and organizations.

The Aurora board is Yoch, chief financial officer Susan Earle, Andrea Carroll-Franck, Elisa Vicuna, Wes Burdine, team attorney Matthew Bergeron, Matt Privratsky, designer Allie Reinke and Rob Spence.

When Yoch said the Aurora wanted parking to be free at their games, to make the sport easily accessible to people without much discretionary income, the Vikings quickly agreed. In the first week of sales, the Aurora received deposits on season tickets for 40% of capacity for TCO Stadium.

Yoch said Minnesota Lynx coach and general manager Cheryl Reeve has volunteered to help, and that the Vikings have been generous at every turn. Former Lynx star and current assistant coach Rebekkah Brunson hosted their party last summer.

"The community ownership model makes this special, but without people like Cheryl leading the way, I don't think there would have been so much oxygen in the market for us," Yoch said.

Reeve has invited the Aurora coaching staff to visit a Lynx practice.

"I think the stuff that Cheryl has been preaching, about standing up and supporting women and women's sports, is finally getting through to everybody,'' Yoch said. "We are beneficiaries of that in a huge way. In so many ways, she has paved the way for us.''