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The Portland Cherry Bombs burst onto the women’s sports landscape earlier this year, even before the team played its first game. The newest team in the USL W, a pre-professional soccer league, made headlines when they debuted their kits—stunning pink, white, and black designs with a radical sponsorship featured prominently on the front: Planned Parenthood. They revealed the jerseys with the help of a local drag queen named Venereal Denise.

The jerseys flew off the shelves, as the small, fairly grassroots organization had not anticipated how much demand there would be for them. They’ve already had to restock the kits multiple times, and they’re hoping to eventually raise $100,000 for Planned Parenthood by the end of the year through the partnership.

“When we first announced the [Planned Parenthood] sponsorship, we were preparing for the worst, but it’s been 98% positive because we know our market and who we are representing and those fans are really coming through for us,” Courtney Schmidt, the general manager of the Cherry Bombs, tells Out of Your League. “Fans are buying a kit to support their team but that same purchase goes back to support women's healthcare; it’s a well-rounded partnership.”

It wasn’t just people in the Portland sports market feeding the demand for Cherry Bombs kits. People from all over the country purchased the kit because of the Planned Parenthood partnership. "It was really the first time that I saw a jersey sponsorship and actually felt happy that it was there, like that’s something I can wear and feel really good about,” says Ale H., a women’s sports fan based in California. “I’ve thought about getting an Angel City kit but I don’t want to wear ‘DoorDash’ across my chest. I thought about getting an Alyssa Thompson Chelsea kit but then all of a sudden they had an AI sponsorship."

There’s a common belief that sports teams should avoid being too vocal about politics in order to avoid alienating potential fans. The unspoken part of that idea is that it’s progressive politics that might turn off viewers. But what if the opposite is true? What if being open about a franchise’s inclusive values actually brings fans in? Judging by the reaction to two values-driven teams in the USL W, the Cherry Bombs and the Minnesota Aurora, there might be something to that theory.

Women’s sports fans, in particular, tend to care about whether their money goes and many longtime fans have vocally struggled with the increase in corporate sponsorships that has come with the growth and increased investment in women’s leagues. In the NWSL, the Rose City Riveters, the supporters group for the Portland Thorns, helped fans remove the “Ring” logos from their jerseys due to ethical concerns about the Amazon-owned company.

A 2024 Vox Media survey of 5,000 sports fans found that 45% of respondents believed that women’s sports were about fighting for equality; 38% thought women’s sports was about speaking out regarding social issues; and 43% felt that women’s sports was about accomplishing change. Those percentages were significantly higher than the answers fans gave when asked the same questions about men’s sports (which were 30%, 27%, and 30% respectively). 

The Aurora are one of the original USL W teams, and were founded in 2021. As the state was under ICE occupation earlier this year, the Minnesota Aurora not only put out social media statements expressing their solidarity with immigrant friends and neighbors, but they joined protests and helped organize mutual aid campaigns for people who were afraid to leave their houses due to their immigration status. The Aurora have also partnered with the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota for the 2026 season, donating $1 from every season ticket sold and 15% of revenue from select merchandise to the non-profit.

“Especially in a sport like soccer, immigration is important as something to be celebrated; immigration is why soccer is here and why it’s so vibrant,” Wes Burdine, a co-founder and board member of the Minnesota Aurora, tells Out of Your League. “For Aurora to not acknowledge as a community-owned club that there are people in our community who are not leaving the house for months, I think it would be insulting to them. We couldn't turn away.”

The ongoing backlash that the San Francisco Giants are facing over allowing several pitchers to write Bible verses on their Pride Night hats is a good example of how a lack of inclusivity can backfire. As the team has continued to refuse accountability for the ways the actions of some of their players have harmed the LGBTQ+ community, the story has only grown. While hosting a Pride Night is something that may have garnered a few bloviating columns on right-wing platforms, the resistance to supporting LGBTQ+ allyship has become a mainstream story—and is costing the team longtime fans.

“I think a lot of men’s sports, including soccer, want to be the NFL and they think that the way to success is by being attached to the dominant culture and the way we've found women’s soccer succeeds is it understands it is a niche and not everyone wants to go and that is totally fine,” says Burdine. “That really means playing up to the people who don't feel represented or like they can enjoy other stadium environments, and that has been one of the keys to success here.”

And the Aurora are having a lot of success. They’re a community-owned team with over 5,000 owners, which means there are thousands of people who have bought a stake in the team. They’re seeing thousands of fans at their games and boast high-profile investors like Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve and her wife, Carley Knox. Sports journalist Sarah Spain is also an investor in the team and, through her podcast Good Game With Sarah Spain, helped the Aurora raise $830,000 during their last round of community ownership buy-in.

“The Aurora's clear and unequivocal support of progressive issues was a major reason I chose to support the team with my investment,” Spain told Out of Your League. “Not only did I feel good contributing my own money to the team, I also felt good suggesting that listeners of my show might want to join community ownership, as well.

“Their connection to community, thoughtful collaborations and partnerships, and vocal support of causes makes clear where they stand and they don't worry about alienating sponsors or fans. I'm not interested in being teammates or partners with folks who are silent about the current state of things, staying neutral in order to avoid offending the Trump administration, or worried about offending brands that are aligning with more ‘conservative values’ due to the political climate.” 

One of Spain’s podcast listeners who decided to purchase a small stake in the Aurora was Jen Ford, who lives in Portland, Oregon. Ford is an NWSL fan who began to learn more about the professional soccer pipeline and realized that, in order for the sport to continue to grow in the U.S., development leagues needed to exist outside of collegiate programs. For her, learning about the Aurora’s values and wanting to help support the growth of the sport made her decision to invest “a no-brainer,” Ford tells Out of Your League, even though she lives far enough away that she’s never been able to attend a game. When the Cherry Bombs debuted this season, she was thrilled to have a local USL W team to support, as well, and became a season ticket holder. 

Another community owner, Steve Bonek, actually moved to Minnesota from Indiana because he was so moved by the mission of the Aurora. He holds season tickets and volunteers on game days as part of the set up and tear down crew. Bonek tells Out of Your League that Aurora has given him a team to root for, but also a sense of belonging. Being able to be part of the group that makes game days happen is a way for him to show his appreciation for what the Aurora is building.

The teams’ theme nights are another place they can flaunt their values. In a short season, where teams play just seven regular season games, franchises have to be selective about which themes they’ll choose to highlight. In Portland, theme nights included a Mexican Heritage Night, a Pride Night, and a Grrrl Power Night. In Minnesota, there was a Pride Night, a Disability Awareness Night, and a Juneteenth celebration.

Aurora is not just seeing success attracting fans to fill the stands, but they’ve been successful on the pitch, as well. The Aurora have never lost a league game in the five seasons they’ve been in the USL W, winning their conference every one of those seasons. They hold the longest regular season unbeaten streak in men’s or women’s soccer.

Burdine doesn’t think that what the Aurora is doing is radical; in fact, he sees it as common sense. “Having a community-based soccer club is about embracing all the ways in which soccer already interacts with our daily community,” he says. “Ideas like identity or immigration status are all things that are already bound up in sports—especially soccer. It’s very important for us to simply recognize that these things are already part of the way we play sports.”

That attitude impacts not just who attends the games, but who plays in them, too. Schmidt says that many of the players they recruited were drawn to the Cherry Bombs because their branding and sponsorships emphasized women’s empowerment and women’s rights; they were excited to be part of a franchise that advocated for them as whole people and not just as athletes. The Aurora made headlines this season when they became the first women’s soccer team to sign an openly transgender man, goalkeeper Isaac Ranson. Burdine says they didn’t sign Ranson to make a statement or to garner press; they signed him because he was the best goaltender. Because Aurora is as welcoming of an environment as it is, Burdine says that made the scouting conversations with Ranson easier. Ranson told the Minnesota Star Tribune that after Aurora reached out to him, he researched the club and found the team’s values “align a lot with all my values” and that was appealing because it was important to him “to find an inclusive team, community, organization.”

It’s possible that being in a pre-professional league like the USL W makes it easier for clubs to take political stances. But at the end of the day, both teams say that the values they bring to their branding and marketing represent the communities they serve. In Portland, the Cherry Bombs’ branding is inspired by the local music scene, specifically the riot grrrl movement, which was openly feminist, radical, and anti-establishment. They even offer live tattooing at their games. You know from the jump what kind of team this is—and they like it that way.

“It’s not about carving our own space in a men's industry, it’s about having space that advocates for women, about supporting one another on and off the field,” says Schmidt. “Women’s sports and women's health go hand-in-hand.”