An incredible 19,302 gold-clad fans filled Rio Tinto Stadium on April 14 to cheer on the Utah Royals as they took on the Chicago Red Stars in their inaugural home opener as a National Women's Soccer League club.

It was a significant moment for the young NWSL.

Only one team in NWSL history -- the Orlando Pride -- saw a bigger crowd for its inaugural home opener. And while the league's most well-supported team, the Portland Thorns, averaged 17,678 fans per game in 2017, the average per-game attendance league-wide last year was just 5,061.

"It was great," Royals coach Laura Harvey said. "To play in front of that amount of people, who truly passionately want us to do well, was a fantastic feeling."

While the NWSL could have spent its sixth season reeling from the offseason loss of two original clubs in FC Kansas City and the Boston Breakers, Managing Director of Operations Amanda Duffy and many others within the league instead believe that the NWSL is in the best position for long-term success that it has ever been.

That feeling has a lot to do with the addition of the Royals as an expansion club this year.

Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen had long expressed an interest in starting a women's club in the NWSL, but hadn't planned to join the league quite so soon. But when it became clear that FC Kansas City would fold this offseason, Thorns owner Merritt Paulson called Hansen and asked him to consider moving up his timeline. It took only a week for Hansen to agree to launch the Royals.

The Royals are the fifth team in the NWSL to be affiliated with a men's professional club, a business model that has proved effective within the league due to the built-in infrastructure, facilities and staff that come through partnering with an existing organization.

Whereas the Thorns, who have the same ownership as the Portland Timbers, were once the only club in the NWSL to be affiliated with a men's professional team, the majority of the nine teams in the league now have similar partnerships. Along with the Thorns and Royals, the Pride and the Houston Dash are also affiliated with MLS teams, while the North Carolina Courage is affiliated with USL side North Carolina Football Club.

"I think it's a model that is proving year-in and year-out to be successful," Duffy said. "With the timing of when Utah came into the league, it was a really short runaway, so having the existing facilities, the existing infrastructure and other resources, positioned them to successfully hit the ground running."

Along with having the built-in infrastructure and support of being affiliated with an MLS team, the Royals have also been committed from day one to elevating the standards and level of professionalism within the NWSL.

The Royals practice in the same new $60 million training facility as Real Salt Lake and the organization built a state-of-the-art locker room for the Royals players in the offseason. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Hansen also struck a deal with the NWSL to have an expanded relocation budget for this season so he could pay to put the players up in one of his Wasatch Group complexes. He hopes to push the league to adopt new initiatives to improve the quality of life for players moving forward. While the league has made gradual progress over the years, it has also dealt with varying setups from market-to-market and has been criticized for substandard facilities and conditions in the past.

"No question, we've taken the concept that women's sports need to be elevated, promoted, respected and we're finding a huge acceptance for that here in Utah," Hansen said. "At a personal level, I am committed to making sure that the living conditions and professional conditions of the players improve to show a greater respect to their professional status."

The Thorns have been considered the gold standard within the NWSL since the league's inaugural season in 2013.

Along with the professionalism within the club and the facilities, Portland has developed into the most well-supported women's club in the world. The Thorns averaged over 17,000 fans per game in 2017 while no other NWSL club averaged more than 6,187.

While it would be unfair to expect the Royals to match the Thorns in attendance in their inaugural season, Utah certainly appears poised for plenty of success this year. The club has already sold more than 5,000 season tickets and, if its home opener was any indication, there appears to be ample support in the Salt Lake community for the new club.

"I do think people are going to discover that it's not just something that's in the water in Portland," Paulson said. "I think there are plenty of other markets that are going to have success. If Salt Lake averages 10,000 fans a game this year, even 9,000, 8,000, that's an unmitigated success story and I think they can build off that."

The Royals organization hopes to play an important role in pushing the NWSL forward in the coming years. Hansen plans to work with Paulson to pitch the league to other MLS owners this year and expects to see one or two new affilated teams join the league next season.

And the Royals have high expectations for their own future as well.

Harvey developed a reputation as one of the best coaches in the NWSL during five years with the Seattle Reign, but left the club at the end of last season for what was assumed to be a role with U.S. Soccer. But when Hansen called and told her about his vision for the Royals, she couldn't turn him down.

"When I got a phone call from Dell Loy, his passion and his desire to want to be one of the best clubs in the world was something that drew me in," Harvey said. "I think when you work with someone who has that vision, and I've been lucky to work for a lot of people that have that vision, it's easy for you to set the bar high."

Up Next: The Royals will host the Thorns in their second-ever home match at Rio Tinto Stadium on Saturday, April 28 at 6 p.m. Pacific Time.

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg