This Sunday, when the Battlehawks compete in their conference championship at The Dome, it won’t just be St. Louis fans hoping they win. It will also be the United Football League.
St. Louis has been by far the most successful market for the UFL, which is in the midst of its second season after a post-COVID reboot. That’s one reason the league championship, slated for the following weekend, is happening at The Dome for the second year in a row.
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But last year offers a cautionary tale. While favored to win, the Battlehawks choked in the conference championship. The UFL title game, which could have been a huge draw for local fans, instead proved a bit of a bummer. Says David Kinsey, the Battlehawks vice president of team business, “People who had pre-ordered or pre-purchased their championship game tickets thinking the Battlehawks are in it, most of them no-showed.”
That would never happen in the National Football League. Skipping the Super Bowl just because your team isn’t playing? Unheard of. But Kinsey, who worked for the Rams until they left St. Louis in 2016, takes it in stride: “We just don’t have the commercial corporate support on a national level, that people are flying in to see the UFL championship game in St. Louis. That’s just not who we are.”
Figuring out who they are, and how to provide an alternative to the NFL, is the UFL’s reality right now. Ticket sales have been down this year in St. Louis, Kinsey acknowledges, though he’s confident the team can regain its mojo from the 2024–2025 season for next year. (The Battlehawks still have some 15,000 season ticket holders.) And the team remains wildly successful compared to some of the league’s other seven markets. The UFL seems ready to continue operations through at least 2026–2027, with a three-year commitment to its new training facility in Arlington, Texas, Kinsey says. But it will need to figure things out in that span.
And that means looking to St. Louis.
“They’re trying to figure out what St. Louis is doing—or what St Louis has done—that can be done in other markets,” he says. “They definitely use us as a kind of a science project.”
That’s even with some very real local growing pains. Initially, Kinsey acknowledges, some of St. Louis’ fandom seemed driven by a desire to get revenge on the NFL, or at least show that league what it was missing. But while that may not be sustainable, what should be is that St. Louis is a football town without another professional football team. “No matter what, any event we’ve done here, any team that’s been here, they walk away with some sort of special connection or story about the city of St. Louis,” he says. “At the end of the day, I think it’s just a great sports town.”
Now the key will be building on that fandom to increase local corporate sponsorship—and also sell tickets to more casual fans. Kinsey is open about the fact that he thinks the UFL erred in having all of its players train in Arlington. It saves money, sure, but it means players aren’t around to participate in the civic life of the city—and that means fewer opportunities for sponsors.
One way around that? The team this year introduced mascot Archie. “He’s been wildly popular,” Kinsey says. “We have a sign-up form online, and managing that sign-up and all the requests has been insane. We’ve got to have an intern to manage all the different requests.” So many, in fact, that the team may add a second Archie just to handle them.
Archie also offers a way to make inroads with a fan base the Battlehawks are intent on growing: families. The team is taking pains to combat any perception that The Dome is full of rowdy drunks. For this season, they converted a bar to a family-friendly deck sponsored by McDonald’s, with games and guest appearances. “Grimace has been up there,” Kinsey says. Next year, they’re considering a whole family-friendly section.
“Those are the two big initiatives for this season, and I think there’s more to come,” Kinsey says. “We don’t want people to think that if you’re not chugging Bud Lights that you don’t fit in.”
Key to families as well: The team is intent on keeping prices low, with some tiers frozen for next year and some even dropping in price.
“I took my family to a Chiefs game, and it cost us a thousand bucks,” Kinsey says. “Whereas I can go to a Battlehawks game for 15 bucks.”
And whether you’re an all-day tailgater or a family with little kids, the Battlehawks have plenty of tickets available for Sunday—playing in a former NFL stadium brings not only big-league vibes but 60,000 seats to fill. If you order before the day of, a portion goes to tornado relief.
The team hopes St. Louis will come out to support it this Sunday—and that they’ll get a chance to make another ask for the following Saturday’s championship game, too.
