Beehive State-inspired 'Swarm' kit serves as evidence of Utah Royals' growth as a club
The team unveiled a third kit Thursday called "The Swarm," and it already has a story to tell — much like Real Salt Lake's kit launches the mirror the rest of MLS and the men's game.
SANDY, Utah — There are two eras of Utah Royals FC, and only a few members of the NWSL club’s current organization who recognize them both.
The first is the Royals 1.0, which went from announcement to inaugural match in roughly 90 days back in 2017 before dissolving three years later when the rights were sold to a Kansas City ownership group.
The return of URFC, often called Royals 2.0, came three years after that, when Real Salt Lake co-owners Ryan Smith and David Blitzer exercised a unique purchase option to re-launch the team as an expansion club alongside California’s Bay FC.
And the two couldn’t be much different, either. Just ask Kate Del Fava.
The Royals 1.0 rookie who debuted in the 2020 NWSL Challenge Cup prior to moving to Kansas City may be the perfect example of the two club’s unique-but-shared history, especially after Utah paid the Current $75,000 in allocation money for the former No. 12 overall pick out of Illinois State in the now-defunct college draft of 2020.
From former owner Dell Loy Hansen to the Smith-Blitzer partnership to current ownership under the family of former Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller and Miller Sports and Entertainment, the clubs almost feel completely different.
“This time around, it just feels like one club, one Utah, one community,” said Del Fava, the club’s all-time appearance leader. “It feels like the women’s side is just as invested in as the men’s side, taken just as seriously, and they’re just as proud to have us here representing the state.
“It’s really cool to see that growth in the last six years.”
For a prime example of the growth of the once-troubled club six years ago to the present, look no further than the launch of its most recent kit.
The third jersey, a black-theme shirt nicknamed “Swarm,” acts as an expression of Utah’s Beehive State identity, worker-bee mentality, and a celebration of unity, industry and shared purpose that define both the state and the Royals’ community.
Every kit has a story. And for the Utah Royals, the Swarm kit is a story of parts coming together to form something greater than their own sum.
That was on full display when the all-black kit with gold accents and a red “Queen Bee” word mark on the back collar was publicly unveiled for the first time to a group that Miller Sports and Entertainment president Michelle Smith called “part of our swarm” Thursday night at America First Field.
The group included season-ticket holders, corporate sponsors like the newly named SME Industries that will serve as the relaunched club’s first-ever lower-jersey-back sponsor, and players and coaches from college programs around the state.
In addition to Del Fava and team captain Paige Monaghan Cronin, RSL players Zavier Gozo, Zach Booth and Tyler Wolff also joined the celebration — another sign that the story of the new Royals’ Swarm is one of unity and cohesion, even between two clubs that share an ownership group.
“Our intention is to always try to tell something about our community,” said Real Salt Lake and Utah Royals president John Kimball, who was the MLS club’s first employee more than 20 years ago. “We gave it to Nike, and our group did a good job of working on some of the themes we wanted until — in conjunction with them — we came up with this amazing kit.
“We’ve got a bunch of really cool kits coming, and I’m really excited about this launch. It’s one I’m going to wear on a consistent basis … I don’t know if there’s another jersey in the league that compares to it. But we’re also going to start that trend of having amazing kits going forward.”
But more than anything, the club wants to tell a story — with its branding, with its player, and even with the shirt on their own backs.
“It’s important that we have a story,” Kimball said. “And if we can get emotion and passion behind it like with Swarm, and create a concept, that’s really our intention.”
The organization used a new kit launch as a storytelling mechanism with Real Salt Lake, including recently in painting the fabric of the state of Utah across the Beehive (2023), Peak Utah (2024) and Grid City (2025) kits before the most current “Switchback” shirt.
URFC ventured down the kits-as-stories road with the Great Salt Lake kit a year ago, when the club partnered with America First Credit Union on a $10,000 donation to the Great Salt Lake Trust for local conservation efforts.
Thursday’s launch was a similar investment by the club — not only financially, but time, energy, passion and creativity — towards treating the women’s team with the same designs as its MLS counterpart.
“Our intention with bringing the women’s team back under the Blitzer organization was for them to be equals,” Kimball said.
“They even eat lunch together, sitting in the same lunch room, the same tables, same interactions with each other; we built a $3 million facility for (the Royals) in Herriman. We wanted to send a message to the league, to female athletes, to the players themselves that is the way they will be treated when they come here to Utah. We take it very seriously.”
Kimball likened the current days of the Royals to Real Salt Lake in 2004, when the MLS club was playing out of Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah and attracting somewhere around 5,000 fans in the then-45,000 capacity stadium for American college football.
“It’s not like we haven’t done this before,” Kimball said. “But what we need is your attention, we need social media, we need our community to step up and support these amazing women. What they are doing is phenomenal.
“We’re on the most solid footing that we’ve ever been on as a club right now,” he added. “With the Millers backing us and what they’re doing, it’s going to be amazing. You’re going to see investment in the team, on the field, in the building. That’s what we need — and then we’ve got to get wins. That’s our focus, to make sure we put a competitive team on the field.”
Players have noticed, too.
“It’s really cool to see how invested the ownership is,” Del Fava said after speaking on a panel with Smith, teammate Brecken Mozingo, head coach Jimmy Coenraets and Royals sporting director Kelly Cousins. “Everybody’s just one family, one Utah-connected group, and it’s really cool to see.”