Why St. Louis has embraced the UFL’s Battlehawks

Previously 5 years, spring soccer in the US has produced three skilled leagues via 4 possession teams and one merger. It has pushed considerate guidelines and new applied sciences into the soccer ecosystem.

And maybe greater than something, it has established that St. Louis is a soccer city.

Whereas a lot of the markets within the XFL, USFL and now UFL have struggled to achieve traction of their residence stadiums, St. Louis has displayed wildly disproportionate assist for its Battlehawks, who got here into existence with the renewal of the XFL in 2020. The workforce has averaged 32,531 followers in 12 video games at The Dome at America Middle since that season. On an annual foundation, the Battlehawks’ attendance has stood wherever between 40% and 70% greater than the remainder of the league the workforce was in.

A complete of 32,115 tickets had been distributed to the Battlehawks’ 2025 residence opener this previous Sunday, a 26-9 victory over the San Antonio Brahmas, and an identical crowd is anticipated Sunday when the Battlehawks host the DC Defenders (3 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN+). The UFL’s common attendance within the seven video games not in St. Louis this season has been 9,421.

“It begins with how rabid the fan base is for sports activities in totality in St. Louis,” stated Russ Brandon, the UFL’s CEO/president. “It is only a tremendous vibrant space, and clearly they love soccer. I all the time inform the story that my first recreation there [in 2023], it was a bitter chilly morning. We’re taking part in a 3 p.m. recreation, and I am going out for a run at 9 a.m. I hear all this these noise behind the dome and there is 6,000 folks tailgating, sporting costumes and with bands and all the things else. I used to be like, ‘Wow, we have one thing right here.'”

Attendance is not the one metric of workforce or league success, however it delivers an necessary visible cue. Brandon referred to as it “crucial” as a result of “full buildings drive a number of different revenues.” Spring soccer has but to show it might maintain itself economically amid the dominance of the NFL, and the importance of the Battlehawks’ story shouldn’t be but clear. Is it the primary signal of a breakthrough, with extra markets to comply with? Or is it an outlier born from the ashes of the Rams’ acrimonious departure?

“You’d like to see a number of the markets duplicate it,” Battlehawks coach Anthony Becht stated. “And it might positively occur. I’ll say this can be a distinctive market the place one thing was taken from them. And the followers, really a number of them present up simply due to that.”

Certainly, one of the constant options of Battlehawks residence video games is references — together with T-shirts and handmade indicators — to Rams proprietor Stan Kroenke, who moved that workforce from St. Louis to Los Angeles in 2016. In his relocation software, Kroenke criticized St. Louis for a inhabitants decline and questioned its financial capacity to assist main league sports activities, prompting a authorized battle with the St. Louis Regional Conference and Sports activities Complicated Authority that led to a $790 million settlement in 2022.

John Lewis, a fan who makes the four-hour drive from Louisville to St. Louis for not less than one recreation per season, stated the enmity and motivation is evident for all to see.

“It is a neighborhood expertise with a shared curiosity in spring soccer and a shared hatred of Stan Kroenke,” Lewis stated. “After I discuss to a number of the old-timers there, they’re like, ‘We beloved the Rams. They did a lot for this neighborhood, after which they snuck out.’ Having a superb skilled soccer workforce within the place the place the Rams performed is type of like a center finger to Stan. It is like, ‘We do not want you. Look what we’ve right here.’ And it is a lot extra accessible and cheaper than making an attempt to go to a Rams recreation.”

THE ORIGINS OF SUPPORT should not that easy, after all. When the XFL chosen St. Louis as one among its residence markets for the 2020 season, it employed Missouri native Kurt Hunzeker as its workforce president. Hunzeker started advertising the workforce by displaying up at native highschool soccer video games, carrying an XFL banner and discovering out what native soccer followers had been concerned about.

One theme grew to become clear. In its historical past, St. Louis had taken in two NFL franchises, the Cardinals from Chicago in 1960 and the Rams from Los Angeles in 1995, after which seen each depart for brand new stadiums elsewhere. Soccer followers in St. Louis wished a workforce grounded within the native market.

“It was like there was a lacking void,” stated Hunzeker, who’s now govt vice chairman of economic operations for the Nationwide Lacrosse League. “So we honed in fairly shortly on this being St. Louis’s first homegrown professional soccer workforce, and folks took nice pleasure in that. It grew to become theirs relatively than an adopted workforce, so to talk.”

The XFL’s central management, led on the time by commissioner Oliver Luck, really useful that groups market family-friendly experiences at their video games. The Battlehawks put in a daycare room and a bounce home in America Middle, however they quickly eliminated each after surveying the gang at their 2020 residence opener. They changed the world with a bar.

“It was completely a hardcore soccer fan base from the beginning,” Hunzeker stated.

Some traditions percolated organically. With out a lot advertising to encourage it, hundreds of followers confirmed up at 7 a.m. to tailgate earlier than a 2 p.m. kickoff. And the now-ubiquitous “Ka-Kaw” battle cry didn’t originate from the workforce however from followers. Hunzeker determined to let it develop, relatively than try to impose a team-generated slogan, even after consulting with an area chicken sanctuary — the place an ornithologist confirmed that the sound really comes from a crow and never a (Battle)hawk.

THE NEW OWNERS of the XFL, who bought the league out of chapter previous to the 2023 season after which merged it with the USFL in 2024, have labored to keep up the connection regardless of a major change in operation. Quite than find every workforce of their markets, because the XFL did in 2020, the next leagues have mixed all of their groups in a hub location to assist handle bills. The UFL’s headquarters is in Arlington, Texas, and its groups journey to native markets on the day earlier than video games after which depart instantly after. Every maintains a entrance workplace workers in its metropolis.

Becht, nevertheless, stated he marketed his candidacy to be the Battlehawks’ head coach partly on his willingness to attach with the neighborhood, together with offseason visits and frequent posts on social media. The workforce hosts choose followers at walk-through practices the day earlier than residence video games, and gamers have served as visitor coaches at native highschool soccer clinics.

“We have got to proceed to develop St. Louis,” Becht stated, “as a result of if we have to carry the fort down [in the UFL] for an additional 12 months and a half or so, that is tremendous. As a result of if we might put a superb product on the sphere, that is what I promote on the opposite finish, that we will have a superb workforce. And that is my accountability from a soccer standpoint. So if we get a superb workforce and a fan base that loves what we’re doing, we are able to type of right the schedule and get it on the TV stations and the locations that matter, then all these issues equal a profit for our league in a totality standpoint.”

The environment at Battlehawks residence video games provides gamers a way of what they may expertise in the event that they discover their approach to the NFL, as many hope to do.

“It is simply the vitality and the texture, such as you really really feel such as you’re within the [NFL] once more,” stated Battlehawks quarterback Manny Wilkins, who hung out on the Inexperienced Bay Packers‘ apply squad in 2019. “You actually really feel like that is an NFL surroundings. The followers. The walkout. The intros. The whole lot, like, it simply actually appears like such an NFL surroundings, and the town of St. Louis has been so loving and welcoming and, ‘Oh, we’ve soccer again right here.’ You’ll be able to see the thrill in folks’s faces, the eagerness that the followers have.

“I might say, for guys which might be on this league who possibly get down on themselves or really feel like they don’t seem to be adequate or they have not gotten their shot or no matter, that is an actual style to encourage any person to work their ass off to make it to the following degree. It is a blessing to be in St. Louis.”

CAN IT BE replicated elsewhere? The DC Defenders could be the closest comparability. They’ve averaged about 14,000 followers per recreation at Audi Area because the begin of the 2020 season, however the facility’s capability of 20,000 makes crowds of that measurement extra intense. Followers have created a convention of constructing a “beer snake” out of empty plastic cups.

“It is about being related into the neighborhood tradition inside each one among our markets,” Brandon stated. “It is taken time for us, popping out of the [2024] merger, to get the precise folks in place. However those who symbolize that model within the market, it is vital. You see it throughout minor league baseball the place all sports activities and challenger leagues the place you have a look at, ‘Properly, the gamers will not be there on a regular basis and the coaches will not be there on a regular basis, however you’ve gotten boots on the bottom.'”

Hunzeker had labored in minor league baseball previous to becoming a member of the 2020 XFL and introduced a lot of its branding ethos, proper right down to an thought for a mascot — Archie B. Hawk — that the UFL finally launched this season. Gamers come and go shortly within the minor leagues, however mascots, as foolish as they may appear, are “your identifier and the personification of your model,” Hunzeker stated.

offered with out context. pic.twitter.com/EJKYIfSoWH

— St. Louis Battlehawks (@XFLBattlehawks) April 6, 2025

“That is a playbook that may be replicated all over the place,” he added. “It is being community-centric, community-minded, and specializing in the fan growth and followers of all ages. You’ll be able to have a mascot that may go into elementary colleges, after which the opposite, you possibly can host pleased hours in bars. You can try this in Birmingham. You are able to do that in Memphis, you are able to do that wherever you need to put probably future groups. And it might completely work.”

The UFL has leaned in wherever doable, giving St. Louis an additional residence recreation this season when San Antonio’s Alamodome was booked for the NCAA males’s school basketball Last 4. However there isn’t a doubt the UFL hopes the remainder of its markets can catch up.

“We’re looking for each lever and alternative to get extra folks within the buildings,” Brandon stated. “We’ve a really disciplined method as we proceed to construct these markets. And we have been lucky popping out of the merger to have good markets that we’re engaged on working via with our staffs. However once more, it takes time.”

ESPN reporter Todd Archer contributed to this story.