63,000 people turning up for a women's football match in Denver and some people still want to debate whether there's an appetite for the women's game. Janine Sonis isn't interested in that conversation, and neither are we. The Canada international and Denver Summit full-back has been one of the standout stories of the NWSL's current expansion wave. Playing for her hometown club in their debut season, she's nine goals deep into the campaign, the most of any Summit player and joint-seventh in the entire league, and by her own admission, happier than she's ever been as a professional footballer. That happiness, it turns out, is contagious. ## What 63,000 Looks Like From the Pitch The home opener at Empower Field at Mile High drew 63,004 fans. Let that settle. For a brand new club. First season. And Sonis, who grew up driving those same roads on the way to childhood practice, was out there in the middle of it. "I think there's parts of it that felt like a fever dream," she said. She's been direct about what the number means: "The 63,000, the fans that continue to show up for us every week, proves the point that it's way overdue." That's not hyperbole. That's someone who's watched the NWSL grow from its difficult early days, through the CBA battles, to a point where expansion clubs are arriving with proper facilities and genuine infrastructure beneath them. She's seen both ends of that spectrum, and she knows which end Denver came in at. It's worth remembering that the women's game is having this kind of moment across the board, [London City Lionesses are building something similar in the WSL](/uprise/football/womens-super-league-2026-27-preview-no-10-london-city-lionesses), stacking their squad and daring supporters to show up. The demand is there when the product is right. ## One Game at a Time, But the Playoffs Are the Target Denver sit ninth with nine matches left, just outside the playoff positions. Sonis is clear-eyed about it: as a competitor, making the playoffs is the only acceptable definition of success, full stop. But she's also honest about what they've already built: a clear identity, a consistent playing style, and a dressing room of people who actually want to be there. The arrival of Champions League winner Lindsey Heaps, a fellow Coloradan returning from Europe, has added something extra. "I don't think that anyone can deny when someone with that résumé and presence comes into an environment that they wouldn't have an immediate impact," Sonis said. That's not just about goals or assists. It's about what elite professionalism does to a locker room atmosphere day-to-day. For the run-in, Sonis identifies attacking partnerships and full-back involvement as the levers to pull. She's treating it as a five-game season. Head down, job done. Her personal highlight of the campaign? A 94th-minute free-kick against the Utah Royals on 9 August, bending it around the wall to seal a 2-1 win. "The free-kick was definitely special for me, just because I spend a lot of time working on them." The kind of goal that only drops for the people who put in the hours no one sees. This is what a well-run expansion club looks like. Denver have done it right, and Sonis is the embodiment of why it's working. The attendance record is the headline, but the story is bigger than that.