Mission impossible? How this amateur women’s soccer team plans to keep advocating and go pro

By Julia Andersen, CNN

(CNN) — Forty-eight regular-season games played and zero losses. While a championship eludes them, this team has their eyes on a much bigger prize: going pro.

Minnesota Aurora FC is a community-owned women’s soccer team born from a parking lot meeting in the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, they consistently play in front of crowds larger than some professional teams in the top flight of women’s soccer. Yet they started and remain an amateur side.

Dreamed up by two friends, Wes Burdine, the owner of popular queer soccer bar The Black Hart in St. Paul, and Matt Privratsky, who’s spent his career in public policy and clean energy advocacy, the team is the result of the duo being frustrated by the lack of elite women’s soccer in Minnesota.

In September 2020, Burdine and Privratsky gathered a group of about 25, standing six feet apart with masks on, and laid the foundations for a new kind of team.

Andrea Yoch was at that first meeting. Having been at Minnesota United when the franchise won the bid to become an MLS side and having helped market Premier League teams coming to the US for preseason tours, Yoch brought vital soccer marketing experience to the new endeavor.

“They were talking about it and had this idea of, well, maybe we could start a soccer team. Maybe we don’t need a rich person,” Yoch told CNN Sports.

“One of the biggest things we needed to figure out was funding, and how we were going to announce the team, and what league we were gonna play in. And so the three of us, Matt, Wes and I, started meeting with different leagues.”

Their timing was fortuitous. The United Soccer League (USL) had just solidified plans for a new pre-professional league, the USL W League, as a pathway for amateur players.

“After meeting with all the leagues, the USL W was coming in brand new in 2022, and they were the only ones that were okay with a community-owned model,” Yoch said.

“We didn’t have what anybody wanted as a franchise fee, but the USL W believed in our vision. And that’s all it was at the time was a vision.”

Community-owned, values-led

With nine founders and support from a new league, Minnesota Aurora launched its first community ownership campaign in August 2021.

Within three months, they raised a million dollars and sold out the 3,080 community shares. Yoch said of the early success, “We just hit a moment in time where everybody was incredibly intrigued and excited about this idea of being able to own a women’s soccer team.”

Despite its relatively small population, Minnesota has a professional team in every major sports league. Yet Aurora, an amateur women’s team, found a way through the saturated market.

“We announced the team and the community ownership the summer after the NCAA athletes had pointed out all the disparities in the locker rooms and the weight rooms at the NCAA (basketball) tournament,” Yoch added. “It was Covid, George Floyd had been murdered; you know, we had just a lot of damage – physically and mentally – in Minnesota.

“I think the combination of people finally being aware of how poorly female athletes were being treated and Minnesotans wanting to do something positive worked together.”

Even with the community backing and media coverage, the co-founders weren’t sure what to expect when the first game rolled around in May 2022.

The plan had been to open half the seats at their new home – the 6,000-capacity stadium at the Minnesota Vikings training facility. The reaction was more than the trio had expected.

Within the first day, 80% of the tickets were sold.

“Our contact at the Vikings called me and said, ‘I think you need to open up the whole stadium,’” Yoch recalled.

“We opened up the whole building. Our first night, we were at over 5,000 fans, and unless it’s a terrible rain game or something, we have never dipped below 4,000.”

Jen Larrick was at that first socially-distanced meeting in 2020, having met Privratsky through a showcase she ran to give exposure to girls outside the typical pay-to-play club soccer system. Larrick joined the team as assistant coach for the inaugural season and just finished her first season as head coach.

“We were absolutely discovering what Aurora was as it was happening, and we, as coaches, were honestly just as shocked as anyone else on that opening game day,” Larrick recalled to CNN Sports.

“I personally am queer, and even that first year we had, you know, half our coaching staff was queer,” Larrick said. “My deep hope is that, you know, from within the team and then also as a fan, it feels like a space where people are welcome when they show up.”

While Yoch and Larrick have been around from the get-go, Saara Hassoun entered the fold as a consultant after the team caught her eye in its inaugural season. She was chief of staff for Gotham FC in the NWSL (the highest tier of women’s professional soccer in the US), including during the team’s 2023 title-winning season, before officially joining the Aurora in May 2025. After five months as chief of staff, the club announced in early October her promotion to club president.

“I thought, ‘I come from professional women’s soccer. I came from a championship-winning team.’ I thought I knew what I was walking into,” Hassoun told CNN Sports. “And it’s indescribable, honestly, it’s indescribable.

“I think you see people coming in the door and continuing to engage with Aurora because they can tell, just based on the way the club carries itself, based on how the club shows up in all of the spaces … people see that and they take notice, and they want to be there because they feel seen, they feel represented, they feel heard.”

However, Aurora’s mission – “creating pathways for women, girls, and gender expansive people to reach their potential, on and off the field” – has not been without challenges.

“One of our values is inclusivity, and there’s more kind of attack on the trans community and girls and women’s sports than ever right now,” coach Larrick said.

“The USL W has some rules about the trans community that are not okay or in line with our values and we’re trying to do what we can, kind of within the difficult context.”

CNN Sports has reached out to the USL W about their transgender athlete guidelines.

“I think, for me, social justice or trying to be socially responsible actors in your community is not about being perfect or getting it right all the time, but it’s about on an everyday basis trying to wrestle with these important, big questions,” Larrick emphasized.

‘Just a matter of time’

“Aurora, I think, in so many ways operates internally, but also in terms of media attention and just general functioning, like a professional team,” Hassoun said.

The club provides housing for its athletes, broadcasts every game locally, and sells full sponsorship packages. However, under league rules, players are not allowed to earn a salary.

Every NWSL expansion announcement draws up a similar predicament for the Aurora: They want to go pro but lack the 30% backing from a single investor mandated by the league.

“The community ownership model won’t work. If we want to go to the NWSL, it’s gonna be $250 million,” Yoch explained.

In addition to requiring a principal owner, the NWSL confirmed via email to CNN Sports that it “require(s) infrastructure investment, an expansion fee and sufficient operating capital to fund a team.”

Some have wondered why Minnesota Vikings owners Zygi, Leonard and Mark Wilf haven’t added the Aurora to their portfolio, as the team plays at the NFL franchise’s training ground. However, the Wilfs already own the 2024 NWSL champion Orlando Pride.

“They are very committed to Orlando,” Yoch confirmed. “While there’s no money exchanging hands, (the Wilfs) do help us a lot. They are incredibly supportive partners.”

With their eye on a professional league, the conversation lurking over the greater women’s soccer world has become a regular topic of discussion for the Aurora’s board: How do you grow the sport while maintaining its singular culture? Are these two aims even compatible?

“The louder we are about our values, the easier it gets to maintain them,” Hassoun said.

This message on maintaining their “fierce advocacy” was echoed by Yoch.

“We had one dinner with someone who I thought was a great potential. And once we walked through what the team stood for and what we were hoping for in an owner, she was very kind and it was very graceful, but she just said, ‘That just doesn’t match up with our family’s beliefs.’

“We’ve discussed: ‘Do we soften our stance?’ And right now, we just don’t believe we should. We believe the right person is out there. We just have to find them.

“For whenever we go pro, we want an investor that believes in our values.”

When asked if Yoch did in fact say whenever they go pro and not if?

“100%… it’s just a matter of time.”

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