Utah Royals damer

Establishment

On November 16, 2017, Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer announced that it had acquired a franchise in the National Women's Soccer League. On November 20, 2017, the league announced that FC Kansas City of the National Women's Soccer League would fold their club, and the team's player contracts, draft picks, and other rights would be transferred to the new Salt Lake City club. As of August 2017^[update], Utah's six NCAA Division I women's soccer teams outnumbered the men's, a seventh women's soccer school moved from Division II to Division I in 2020, and the state has the highest rate of girls' high school soccer players recruited by Division I colleges. Attendance at Division I women's soccer games in Utah is among the highest in the NCAA. The decision to bring a NWSL team to Utah was based on the established interest in men's soccer in the state as well as Dell Loy Hansen's gut feeling and longtime interest in a team.

The new Salt Lake City team announced its hiring of former Seattle Reign FC coach Laura Harvey as its inaugural head coach on November 27, 2017.

Inaugural season

Gunnhildur Yrsa Jónsdóttir scored the first goal in franchise history on March 24, 2018 in the third minute of the club's inaugural match against Orlando Pride in Orlando. 18,500 tickets were sold ahead of their first home match (with only club seats and standing-only tickets remaining). Official attendance the day of the match, in which they played the Chicago Red Stars, was reported as 19,023.