Looks like residents of St. Louis are still a little salty about their NFL team leaving town, because they are full throttle behind the city’s newest XFL football team: the St. Louis Battlehawks.
This weekend marks Week 4 of the XFL 3.0 (previous installments in 2001 and 2020) season, and also finally brings the Battlehawks off the road for their first home game of the season. The Battlehawks were a part of the 2020 version of the XFL, and before the season was suspended because of COVID-19, the Blue and Grey uniformed team was soaring to high attendance numbers.
Fast forward to this year’s edition of the XFL, and the fans in St. Louis are still just as excited for football in their city. Based on single-game tickets and season tickets already purchased for Sunday’s matchup between the Battlehawks and the Arlington Renegades, attendance numbers are expected to exceed over 30,000 fans.
Though the newest version of the “X-treme Football League” looks promising with TV partnerships (ESPN & FX) and decent ratings, attendance of the actual games across the league leaves room for improvement. That is why the projected attendance for Battlehawks’ first home game is so eye opening.
Total attendance for the entire league last week (four games each week) was 45,546 fans. The St. Louis Battlehawks are opening up the 400 level of their stadium, nicknamed the BattleDome, and might have a realistic shot of breaking the entire league’s attendance on their own.
The stadium, which formerly housed the St. Louis Rams NFL franchise, has a capacity of over 80,000 seats. A sell-out crowd might be out of a reach, but a fanbase of BattleHawk fanatics will do their best to fill up the Dome. Co-owner of the league, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, played a large part in reviving and funding the return of the XFL. He went to Twitter to share his excitement for the football team in St. Louis:
So are the fans of the St. Louis Battlehawks supporting the team out of spite for the Rams leaving for Los Angeles? Or are they just happy to support another successful St. Louis sports team?
They certainly have strong fanbases for their Major League Baseball (St. Louis Cardinals) and National Hockey League (St. Louis Blues) teams. With the addition of a Major League Soccer (St. Louis S.C.) and XFL team this year, it looks like the Gateway City is eager and ready to re-establish themselves as a booming, competitive sports town.
If you are a fan of football and haven’t given the XFL a shot yet, take advantage of a rowdy Battlehawks crowd and tune in on Sunday at 4 EST on ESPN 2 (or ESPN+) and witness the return of pro football to St. Louis.
Plus, they easily have the best team name in the XFL. How can you get better than a Battlehawk? Don’t ask what a Battlehawk is, just jump in head first like the rest of the country. Like the team likes to say, Kaw-Kaw is the Law.
