It was good business for Vermont Green FC to add a women’s team. Now, they’re on the cusp of a title.

For Vermont Green FC to have a successful first season in the USL W League this summer, it just needed to attract some new fans, establish a foundation for the future, and perhaps win a couple games.

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What it did instead went so much further.

Building on a ride-or-die fan base that has supported the men’s side of the Burlington-based club since its founding in 2022, the women in Green infused new life into the fandom. They introduced the Vermont community to women’s professional soccer and turned existing fans of women’s sports into Green diehards.

And it didn’t hurt that the team kept winning.

After going undefeated (10-0-4) and winning the Northeast Division title, Vermont Green FC will face Salmon Bay FC in the USL W League championship game in Seattle. Tickets are sold out, but fans can stream the game Saturday (5 p.m. EST) on Salmon Bay’s website.

Green cofounder Patrick Infurna wants to dispel the idea that adding a women’s side was an act of “charity” or a way to earn good press. Beyond being the obvious next step in the club’s growth, he said, adding a women’s team is a revenue driver on par with the men’s.

“We talk to a lot of people who are like ‘women deserve this’ — and obviously that’s true,” Infurna said. “But we also hear people follow that up and say it’s a sacrifice. … Our women’s team is as viable for our business as our men’s team, and we want to grow this thing, so we need to have a good business.”

The USL W League, which fields 96 teams across the country, is a summer training ground for top college players and aspiring professionals — the women’s soccer equivalent of the Cape Cod Baseball League. The winners of the USLW’s 16 divisions constituted the playoff bracket.

From the outset of this season, the women in Green’s “North Star” was to win the division, coach Abby Carchio said. Anything beyond that was a pleasant but unexpected bonus.

“The community was just excited to have a women’s squad, and hopefully we’d get some wins,” said Carchio, who’s also an assistant at Northeastern. “I don’t think the expectations were to go undefeated in our conference, never mind win and then go on to make the national final.”

While the current iteration of the league has existed since 2022, Vermont was one of only a handful of new teams this season, and persuading players to join an unproven squad in its first year was no easy feat.

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Many athletes and their coaches, particularly at Power Four schools, worry about overtraining during the offseason. USLW players retain their amateur status and don’t get paid to play, so Carchio and sporting director Adam Pfeifer had to get creative to convince them it would be worth leaving their homes and families for the summer.

“That’s a tough sell for players that have never heard of our team before,” Carchio said.

The club has a record of success on the men’s side, which Pfeifer and Carchio leveraged in their pitch to prospective players. They also touted the University of Vermont’s state-of-the-art facilities, where the club trains and competes.

Another draw is the Green’s Vermont roots and community-first model. Games feel like a party and a farmers market wrapped into one, Infurna said. The teams’ training shirts are sponsored by Ben & Jerry’s; you’d be hard-pressed to find a sponsor more quintessentially Vermont than that.

But perhaps the biggest draw of all was that, by sharing a team name and identity with the men, the women’s team inherited the support of a passionate fan base that sells out Virtue Field (capacity 2,500) nearly every game.

Watching a video of the raucous fans waving flags, belting songs, and firing off flares during a men’s match was what drove Boston College sophomore Emily Mara to join the Green this summer.

“This is the Vermont community. They love Vermont Green. You will be supported everywhere you go,” Mara said. “I loved that idea of not just playing for myself and the team, but playing for the whole community in Vermont.”

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