Before Rob Cohen owned local fútbol, he could’ve owned local football.

In 2022 Cohen, the governor and controlling owner of Colorado’s expansion National Women’s Soccer League franchise Denver Summit FC, was an adviser to multiple bidders who were trying to buy the Broncos. Had one of those groups been successful in their pursuit of the team, which was brought by the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group, Cohen would’ve been a limited partner.

Following that, other investment groups from around the country started calling Cohen to see if he wanted to join forces, including people who were trying to buy MLB’s Washington Nationals and the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.

But those offers, along with his look behind the curtain of the Broncos’ sale, made Cohen realize exactly where he wanted to put his money: professional women’s sports in Colorado.

“It dawned on me quickly that the reason I was interested in the Broncos deal is because it’s my town,” Cohen said. “It’s our team. It’s our community. And then I started putting these pieces together and thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we brought a woman’s professional team to town?’ And instead of being a limited partner, I could potentially be the general partner.”

In the years that followed the Broncos’ sale, Cohen was first involved in an effort to bring a WNBA team to the state, and then later joined forces with the grassroots campaign For Denver FC to land an NWSL team.

While the two pursuits overlapped, Cohen realized by the end of 2023 that the latter venture was what he wanted to do.

The chairman and CEO of IMA Financial Group said the economic setup of the WNBA wasn’t a good fit for him. The league is owned by a partnership of the NBA, WNBA owners (many of whom are also NBA owners) and an outside group of investors. But the NWSL is independent, as the team owners are shareholders in the league’s overall ownership.

That economic piece, in addition to what Cohen witnessed when he attended his first For Denver FC’s watch party of a U.S. women’s Olympic team match at a Denver bar in August 2023, convinced him to back local efforts to land an NWSL club.

“At that first watch party, I kind of expected when I walked in that there was going to be a small group of soccer fans sitting around a single TV in a sports bar, and the other TVs would be on other sports,” Cohen recalled. “But when I walked in, it was packed. And every TV was on the USWNT game. There were women, men and kids in there. After that, I quickly started to research the growth of soccer in the United States, especially how much of that growth has occurred in the last 10 years.

“From there, I decided, ‘This is a hot wire.’ And from then on, I moved completely over from the WNBA, and it was all about the NWSL.”

Roots in Denver sports

Cohen, 64, is a Wichita, Kansas, native and third-generation insurance man. He grew up with a love of sports, especially basketball, which he played in high school and then as a walk-on practice player at the University of Texas.

After graduating from UT, he moved all around the country and even overseas for work. It was during his stint in Denver in 1986 when he met his wife, Molly, who was the reason he moved back here permanently in 1989.

At that time, Cohen opened a start-up spin-off of his Wichita family business. Within his first decade in Denver, Cohen was already getting involved locally, including helping with the campaign for the new Broncos stadium.

That stadium jump-started him becoming a respected behind-the-scenes force in Colorado sports, when in 2001 — the first year the stadium opened — the city fumbled an opportunity to host the Big 12 football championship game at Invesco Field.

“The Big 12 sent a bid document to Denver, and it bounced around Denver, for lack of a better term,” Cohen said. “But there was nobody that owned that process. And ultimately, nobody submitted a bid.

“It didn’t make sense to me at the time that we had spent however hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on a stadium, and we had an opportunity to host an event that would be a return on that investment, but nobody submitted a bid.”

Because of that Big 12 bid slipping through the cracks, Cohen founded the Denver Sports Commission, which has helped facilitate the city landing several marquee events, including the NBA All-Star Game, two MLB All-Star Games, the NCAA Women’s Final Four and the NCAA Frozen Four.

Denver Sports Commission executive director Matthew Payne said that through Cohen’s business ventures and his social connectedness — Cohen’s also served as the past chairman for the Colorado I Have a Dream Foundation, the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, and the Downtown Denver Partnership, among other organizations — he’s become a renowned networker “and it’s always easy for people to take his call when he rings to get something done.”

Cohen, who has had a short runway of just 14 months to get Summit FC off the ground ahead of the club’s inaugural match on Saturday in San Jose, has also become acclaimed for his ability to juggle his involvement in the community with running his business and his family life.

Mike Johnston, who has known Cohen for several decades, says that when he was a tenant in Cohen’s IMA building before he became Denver mayor, he would routinely pop into Cohen’s office and marvel at the large wooden desk that serves as Cohen’s “inbox.”

“Whatever the things are that he has to get done are in the form of papers that land on that desk,” Johnston said. “When I’d see him in the morning, the desk would be covered in stacks. And before the day is over, every single paper is off that desk, which means whatever the things are he’s doing, there’s no room for error and there’s no chance for letting it fall through.

“I thought to myself at the time, ‘Alright, this is a guy who believes in setting big goals and doesn’t let go until he’s succeeded.’ When this very big piece of paper (Summit FC) landed on Rob Cohen’s desk, I knew it was going to get done.”

But Cohen’s success is also defined by a big venture he didn’t get done.

Cohen, an Olympics fanatic, has also served on the boards for the United States Olympic Museum as well as the United States Olympic & Paralympic Foundation. He was a central figure in a push for Denver’s bid to host the 2030 Winter Olympics that ultimately failed.

The U.S. Olympic Committee supported Salt Lake City instead, and Salt Lake City then won the bid through the International Olympic Committee to host the 2034 Games. Denver’s unconventional bid sought to limit new construction to keep costs down, but still faced public resistance.

A few days after Denver’s bid failed in 2018, Cohen was golfing with his close friend Mark Erickson. Over his swings — Cohen plays rapid-fire, ready golf, mirroring how he lives his life — Cohen moved on.

“We talked for maybe one or two holes about how it went down, and what he was disappointed about,” Erickson said. “By the time we got to the turn, he was talking about his other social endeavors.

“… One of the reasons for Rob’s consistent success, other than being really great at planning and strategy and his business mind, is being able to take opportunity out of what didn’t go well. I’ve seen him do it in the sports world, I’ve seen him do it at IMA. And now, the next batter up is Denver Summit FC.”

Cohen’s ‘big bet’

To make Summit FC a reality, Cohen and his investment partners started by plopping down an eye-popping $110 million expansion fee, a record for a U.S. women’s professional sports team.

And that was only the start of the spending.

Summit FC is also building a temporary stadium, Centennial Stadium, in Centennial, that is costing around $25 million. Cherry Creek School District will foot $15 million of that bill via a voter-approved bond. Plus, the club built its own training facility there.

A permanent, 14,500-seat stadium at Santa Fe Yards at Broadway and I-25 is also in the plans, and that venue is slated to cost around $225 million, with help from the city of Denver.

“We think we have a plan to do it, but the execution risk is high,” Cohen said. “Every time we make a major decision to put down money, there’s a lump in your throat. But fear is a great motivator.”

The 64-year-old recruited a diverse group of investors to join him in his “big bet.” That includes Ariel Investments’ Mellody Hobson, who is part of the Broncos’ Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group and serves as Summit FC’s alternate governor. Other high-profile Summit FC investors are former Broncos QB Peyton Manning and Colorado skiing icon Mikaela Shiffrin.

Cohen, who admits he’s put “a significant portion of my net worth” into the team, hopes Summit FC’s assets will allow it to break even after five years and start generating a return for its investors in 10.

Owning its own venues, in addition to the NWSL’s landmark four-year, $240 million media rights deal that started in 2024, fuels Cohen’s confidence. Last fall, the NWSL announced that its media rights contract was expanding for the 2026 and ’27 seasons by building on agreements with CBS Sports and ESPN while adding a new partnership with the streaming platform Victory+.

“The reason men’s sports are successful is they’re building the venues, and then they’re selling the naming rights, they’re selling the pouring rights, they’re activating the building 365 days a year — and by doing that, they’re creating a revenue stream that actually adds and supplements,” Cohen said.

“This way, we can create a level playing field in terms of the same revenue opportunities so that we can actually create a successful business.”

Consistent risk-taker

The risk Cohen is taking by pouring hundreds of millions into Summit FC is right on brand for the businessman.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, like many businesses in the middle of a crisis-caused downturn, IMA faced a watershed moment. Cohen responded by taking a gamble on reorganizing the company’s capital structure.

As IMA president Luke Proctor explains, IMA went from being entirely employee-owned to majority-employee-owned, with a few outside investors that bought small portions of the company. That enabled the company to acquire capital to grow the business, but allowed IMA to remain in control of its culture and direction.

“When we started that process, and he laid out his vision, our advisers said, ‘OK, you’re the client, we understand that’s what you want to do. Just know that this has never been done (in this industry),’” Proctor said. “‘We’re in the middle of COVID. If it’s ever going to be done, it’s probably not going to be done in this environment. So please, just be open-minded to something a little more conventional.’”

Cohen ignored that conservative advice, and as a result, IMA’s footprint exploded about fivefold over the last five years.

IMA went from a smaller, regional insurance broker to being relevant nationwide. In that half-decade of growth, Cohen says the company went from about 600 employees to nearly 3,000, and its net revenues skyrocketed from approximately $200 million to just under a billion.

While IMA’s capital structure has since been copied by competitors in the industry, it was the latest roll-of-the-dice by Cohen that paid off. Another one was when the company built its headquarters in Lower Downtown about 15 years ago, when Cohen used his own money on a $30 million building on the north wing of Union Station.

At the time, the plans to redevelop Union Station into a multi-modal hub were bogged down by a deflated real estate market amid the Great Recession. Hundreds of millions of federal loans for the project were at risk of vanishing. Coors Field had been an anchor in the district for a couple of decades, but LoDo was far from the attractive area of downtown that it is now.

“He was one of the people who put his money where his mouth was, and showed the rest of the community that this is how (the Union Station redevelopment) can work,” Sen. John Hickenlooper said. “LoDo had come a long way since the building of Coors Field, but still, no one was going into offices down there in that whole development around the train station.

“So he really was a pioneer there, because progress is dependent upon the people like Rob that aren’t afraid to step out beyond where everyone else holds back and to say, ‘This is going to work.’”

The businessman’s philanthropy

Whether it was building his LoDo office or starting Summit FC, Cohen says his desire to take on big projects in the community is two-fold.

“My motivation, yes, is about business and creating a return,” Cohen said. “But my motivation is more about giving back to a community that has changed my life.”

It might sound like millionaire-speak until you take a closer look at a couple of Cohen’s signature philanthropic endeavors.

In 2001, Rob and Molly Cohen “adopted” a class of third-through-fifth graders who lived in a low-income housing development in Denver through the Colorado I Have A Dream Foundation. The couple pledged financial and academic support for over 30 kids, with the promise that if they graduated high school, they would receive an annual stipend to attend college.

Rob Cohen routinely stopped by the housing development to help kids with homework and play basketball with them. In total, all but one of the kids graduated from college.

“What was also beautiful about it is that although they were providing those financial resources, they were also present in our lives,” said Dr. Oumar Diallo, who is now an epidemiologist. “We could see them. We could touch them. We could ask them questions about life. That was important for us as inner-city kids.”

Both Diallo and another “dreamer,” current Denver Fire Department lieutenant Ashaun Drumgo, said that Cohen’s networking in their high school days provided a launch pad for their careers.

For Diallo, that meant access to pre-collegiate programs as well as opening the door for internships that allowed him to land a Gates Millennium Scholarship, which paid for his undergrad, master’s and Ph.D. degrees. And in Drumgo’s case, Cohen never forgot the fifth-grade Drumgo standing on stage at his induction into the I Have A Dream program, when the youngster proclaimed he wanted to be a firefighter.

Eight years later, Cohen used his connections to set up Drumgo with a lunch with the Denver Fire Department chief, which provided Drumgo with the roadmap for his career goal and an in to be hired by the department after graduating from college.

“Rob is known for his smile, but he also likes to do a little wink with his eye,” Drumgo said. “That night at the induction ceremony, he shook my hand, said, ‘So you want to be a firefighter, huh?’ And did the smile and the wink. I didn’t know it then, but that was him essentially saying, ‘I got you.’ And throughout my life, he hasn’t just talked the talk with his money. He walks the walk, too.”

Cohen’s influence also extends to his support of Metropolitan State University of Denver, where he and Molly are major benefactors.

The Cohens were inducted into the MSU Denver Hall of Fame last year following three decades of support for the university. The couple co-chaired the university’s recent “Roadrunners Rise” $100 million fundraising initiative, with Rob Cohen’s network proving key in reaching that goal.

Rob and Molly also founded the Cohen Pacesetter Program, which provides scholarships and support for students. And their longstanding support of the MSU Denver athletic programs led to their name on the Cohen Center, a 20,000 square foot building that has locker rooms, a weight room, an athletic training room and more inside the Assembly Athletic Complex.

MSU Denver Foundation president/CEO Christine Márquez-Hudson believes the Cohens have been so generous to the university because Rob “sees MSU Denver as a school that caters to a really diverse array of Coloradans, and one that’s always been about the working student.”

And like Drumgo described with the I Have A Dream Foundation, MSU Denver president Janine Davidson emphasizes the Cohens “don’t just write checks.”

“One weekend, Rob and all his folks from IMA came to campus to paint classrooms,” Davidson said. “They do things like that. They’ve had (family) weddings on our campus. They are ingrained here… It’s so important that we have prominent people in the community saying that MSU Denver is worth investing in. And Rob and Molly have been doing that for years.”

Summit FC’s first big moment

Following Saturday’s match in San Jose, Summit FC plays two more games on the road, then returns to Denver for “The Kickoff,” its inaugural home match on March 28 at Empower Field against the Washington Spirit.

Ticket sales for the match have already surpassed 50,000, all but ensuring the club will break the attendance record for a professional women’s sporting event. That mark of 40,091 was set at a Bay FC match at Oracle Park last year.

“I don’t want to just break the record,” Cohen said. “I want to shatter it and create a record that won’t be broken for a long, long time.”

With a roster headlined by six Colorado players, including USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps, on paper, Summit FC looks like a contender. Cohen, ever the dreamer, hopes his debut side will be in the NWSL championship match come Nov. 21.

But regardless of what happens on the pitch, Johnston said that March 28 will be a defining moment in Cohen’s still-evolving local legacy.

“When I see him at Empower that day, I’m going to say to him, ‘We made Denver history — and we’ve changed the course of hundreds of thousands of young girls’ lives in this state,’” Johnston said. “And we did it because of Rob Cohen. That’s the highest compliment you can give to someone.”