PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAURA MISEREZ
More than 29,550 fans crowded into the Dome on Sunday, February 23, 2020, to cheer on the XFL BattleHawks in its home opener against the New York Guardians. St. Louis won 29-9.
The last professional football game in the Dome at America’s Center was December 17, 2015. That game ended in a St. Louis Rams victory, though there was very little to celebrate as its conclusion marked the finish of yet another losing season. In fact, it marked the 13th season in a row since the Rams' last winning record (2003). But even more than that, fans saw the team’s relocation writing on the wall.
Turn the clock forward four years to this past Sunday, February 23, 2020, when professional football returned to the Dome in the home opener of St. Louis’ XFL franchise, the BattleHawks. After going 1-1 in the opening two games of the season, excitement was steadily building prior to the BattleHawks’ home opener at the “BattleDome.”
The region’s response to the return of professional football at the Dome was nothing less than euphoric. Fans sold out all available seating and on game day nearly 30,000 fans crowded the lower bowl donning official BattleHawks gear, hawk-like head gear, winged outfits, and custom T-shirts featuring the BattleHawks’ unofficial battle cry—which has taken on a life of its own—”kakaw!”
Make no mistake, the BattleHawks frenzy in St. Louis and the surrounding region is about more than just football: It’s about city and regional pride. It’s a demonstration that this city supports their pro teams and are enthusiastic to rally around them. It’s a demonstration that St. Louis truly is a great sports city, a point of pride for St. Louis and the surrounding area.
Part of the backdrop to this show of pride is the judgement made by Stan Kroenke, echoed nationally, that St. Louis is a feeble market, unable to support more than two professional sports teams. St. Louisans repulsed—and continue to repulse—at Kroenke’s comments, taking them as a personal indictment of their city and sports devotion rather than merely an overstated assessment in an effort to relocate the Rams.
St. Louis sports fans’ disgust of Kroenke can be routinely heard at Blues home games against the Kroenke-owned Colorado Avalanche with the chanting of “Kroenke sucks.” But the chant was given a new venue on Sunday at the Dome, where, at the place pro-football concluded in St. Louis four years prior, fans welcomed their new team while chanting, you guessed it, “Kroenke sucks.”
The case against Kroenke’s negative assessment of St. Louis as a weak sports city and region has been building ever since he relocated the Rams. The case started with St. Louis’ stellar Winter Classic event in January 2017, was highlighted by the spectacular success of the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive, was further escalated by the region’s showing at the Blues’ first Stanley Cup Championship parade, and rose to new heights with the August 2019 announcement that the St. Louis ownership group, MLS4TheLou, had been awarded an MLS expansion franchise. Just four short years after the Rams vacated the Dome, The BattleHawks’ sold-out crowd of raving 'Hawks fans (with talks of opening the upper bowl for upcoming home games) is yet more proof of St. Louis’ sports fandom.
Sunday proved that the St. Louis region loves football, that much is true. But more than that, Sunday’s sold-out home opener was St. Louis' way of showing the rest of the nation that there is still energy and vitality in the St. Louis’ sports scene, a point of pride for both the city and the region. The raucous “BattleDome” on Sunday showed yet again that St. Louis is an exceptional sports city.
The paint on Kroenke and the NFL’s bleak picture of St. Louis has begun to peel, revealing the optimistic image of a city that continues to invest in its sports culture. The BattleHawks and “kakaw nation” are simply the latest demonstration of this portrait displaying local sports pride.
