St. Louis BattleHawks
The St. Louis BattleHawks are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. The team is an owned-and-operated member of the XFL begun by Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment. The team will play its home games at The Dome at America's Center.
Founded | 2018 |
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League | XFL |
Team history | St. Louis BattleHawks 2020–present |
Based in | St. Louis, Missouri |
Stadium | The Dome at America's Center St. Louis, Missouri |
Colors | Royal, grey, navy[1] |
Owner | Alpha Entertainment, LLC |
President | Kurt Hunzeker |
Head coach | Jonathan Hayes |
General manager | Jonathan Hayes |
Website | www |
St. Louis joins Seattle, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Tampa Bay and Washington, D.C. as the league's inaugural cities. Teams will have 45-man active rosters and play a 10-week season. Vince McMahon said “the game will feature simplified rules for a faster pace of game that should complete in under three hours”, and will draw from former college and NFL players.[2]
Market overview
The BattleHawks are the only XFL team not to share its market with a current National Football League franchise; St. Louis had hosted NFL football in 1923 with the All-Stars, 1934 with the Gunners, 1960 to 1987 with the Football Cardinals, and again from 1995 to 2015 with the Rams, the last of which relocated to Los Angeles in the 2016 season. There is a significant negative sentiment against the NFL in St. Louis[3], as both the Cardinals and Rams relocated to new markets, citing a division between the teams' ownership and both the city & county governments of St. Louis to adequately provide a new stadium and the unacceptable condition of the Dome at America's Center. (The Dome was the last NFL stadium to be built with a fully opaque and fixed roof, which led to a lack of ambient light and, coupled with the Rams' decision to switch to a darker uniform color palette in the early 2000s, resulted in one of the darkest stadium environments in the NFL.) As St. Louis was one of the most recent cities to lose an NFL team, with acceptable facilities by XFL standards, the area was seen as a good choice to take advantage of a newly empty football market.
St. Louis has very little history of hosting alternative professional football. None of the major alternative outdoor leagues of the late 20th and early 21st centuries had a team there, and the Arena Football League's only presence was the St. Louis Stampede of 1995 and 1996. Some indoor football teams have played at Family Arena in suburban St. Charles, Missouri, including the RiverCity Rage and River City Raiders. St. Louis has also been devoid of NCAA Division I Football since 1949, when the Saint Louis University Billikens dropped football as an intercollegiate sport; the nearest FBS football squad, the Missouri Tigers, play in Columbia.
The St. Louis BattleHawks will share the Missouri winter sports market with one other major professional team, the National Hockey League's St. Louis Blues, and with the Billikens' and Tigers' college basketball teams.
Stadium
The Dome at America's Center was originally built for the Rams and as an addition to the adjoining St. Louis Convention Center. Since the departure of the Rams, the Dome has continued to host a plethora of other events, enough that the stadium was unable to host a team in the Alliance of American Football for the 2019 season.[4] The XFL will pay $800,000 in rent to use the Dome (a $300,000 flat fee plus $100,000 for each game) in exchange for keeping all of the revenue from ticket sales; the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission will keep concession and parking revenue.[5] For XFL games, the Dome will have a reduced capacity, similar to the San Antonio Commanders use of the Alamodome and the earlier XFL's Orlando Rage at the Citrus Bowl, bringing the stadium's capacity down to around 38,000.[6] Along with CenturyLink Field, it is the only XFL venue in a downtown city center.
Oliver Luck has said the new team will use Rams Park in Earth City as their practice facility.[7] Since the Rams departure, the facility has been used by Lou Fusz Soccer Club.
The league has also said that should St. Louis successfully win a franchise for a Major League Soccer team (which indeed was granted and will begin play in 2022), the XFL would be interested in having the St. Louis team play at the St. Louis MLS Stadium, given its new amenities, better lighting and capacity closer to projected attendance. Three XFL teams will share stadiums with MLS teams for the inaugural season.
Staff
St. Louis BattleHawks staff | ||||||
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Roster
St. Louis BattleHawks roster | |||||||||
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Quarterbacks
Running backs
Wide receivers
Tight ends
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Offensive linemen
Defensive linemen
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Linebackers
Defensive backs
Special teams
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Reserve lists
Roster updated December 2, 2019 | ||||||
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References
- "St. Louis BattleHawks' uniforms, helmet". XFL.com (Press release). December 3, 2019. Retrieved December 12, 2019.
- Staff, KOMO (5 December 2018). "Seattle chosen as one of 8 inaugural teams for new XFL football league". KOMO.
- "If Corrupt NFL Wants the Chargers In STL, Here Are Our Terms: Pay Up, For Everything". 101Sports.com. 2018-10-23. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
- June 21; 2018. "St. Louis Left Out As AAF City With Dome Unavailable For Games". www.sportsbusinessdaily.com. Retrieved 2019-02-15.
- "FOX2 obtains agreement between XFL, St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission". FOX2now.com. 2018-12-10. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
- https://twitter.com/XFLBattleHawks/status/1181581179968983042/photo/1
- Florio, Mike (2019-04-08). "XFL to use one-, two-, three-point conversions". ProFootballTalk. Retrieved 2019-04-09.