Battlehawks mend St. Louis football fans’ broken hearts

ST. LOUIS — Rick Storie estimates he has attended more than 200 college and professional football games in his life. He likes the sport. He likes the players. He likes the crowds.

But he loves the Battlehawks. Every game day, it’s the same phenomenon.

“I get goosebumps,” said Storie, of O’Fallon, Missouri. “It’s more crazy than any fandom I’ve ever been around.”

It’s a fandom that has generated a grassroots war whoop and sired its own mascot. On social media, chatter about the upcoming season — which kicks off March 30 in Michigan — began months ago, with roster speculation, tailgating maps and carpool plans for away games. A partner in the league’s ownership group called St. Louis “the most successful” market for spring football. 

Just Thursday, St. Louis was named as the host of this year’s championship game.

Even within the region’s congested sports landscape, the Battlehawks are holding their own, grabbing more eyeballs on television broadcasts last year than some Blues games. After easily besting the attendance numbers of other XFL cities — the average crowd topped 35,000, more than twice that of any competitor — the team unrolled extra sections in The Dome at America’s Center this year. An opening day of 50,000 is not out of the question.

“Support has been outstanding,” said Brian Stull, the Battlehawks communication director.

Stull said Thursday that season ticket sales were up 32% over this time last year.

The fervor, fans say, isn’t contingent on the team’s success, though the Battlehawks are coming off a solid 7-3 record, where they narrowly missed the playoffs.

The true-blue community that originally formed — at least in part — out of spite toward cut-and-run Rams owner Stan Kroenke has flourished independent of the mustachioed billionaire’s pot shots.

“I think that was a real part of things when the XFL launched,” said Stull. “But it’s not like it used to be. Now, it’s kind of a chuckle.”

Passion for the sport, affordable tickets and a community that takes joy in being part of a boisterous collective has fueled the hype surrounding the Battlehawks.

Storie fell for the team early, before players ever took the field. In 2019, the newly re-formed XFL under wrestling promoter Vince McMahon, was hashing out league details. Storie, a longtime Mizzou tailgater, established his turf at Grace Baptist Church on Seventh Street, north of the Dome. He christened it Mo Hawk’s Landing and started an eponymous Facebook page.

Each week, the group announces a theme and fashions a menu around it. Occasionally, they sell handmade merchandise. One time, Battlehawks quarterback A.J. McCarron’s parents stopped by for a drink.

Season-ticket holder Laura Baker of Ballwin made it her mission to establish a unique presence in the Dome. The inhabitants of section 142 have their own social media page. At one game, they might all wear gauzy boas. At another, they’ll shake matching silver pompoms.

Plans for this season are still in the works.

“We’ve thought of kazoos, but they’re not loud enough to be distracting,” Baker said.

Elsewhere in the Dome, streamers will fly. Beach balls will bounce about. A self-styled mascot, Excaliburd, likes to reward the biggest cheerleaders by throwing rally towels into the stands.

Excaliburd, of Imperial, keeps his real identity under wraps; in his case, a leather tunic. Neither the league nor the team officially promotes a mascot. But Excaliburd decided in 2020 that a mascot he would be.

The blue-plumed gladiator, who is coy about his age, spent his childhood watching the football Cardinals. As an adult, he went all in on the Rams, rarely missing a contest.

“I was over the moon when they arrived,” he said.

And when Kroenke waltzed them out of St. Louis and back to Los Angeles in 2016, it hurt.

But the popularity of the Battlehawks makes it obvious that the opinion of one universally loathed tycoon is incorrect: “This is a great sports town,” Excaliburd said.

He witnesses that firsthand. Excaliburd is downtown right after sunup on game days, handing out lollipops and foam swords. He takes his role seriously: He doesn’t drink alcohol and only occasionally speaks, usually to bellow a “ka-kaw!”

Six-year-old Luke Deniszczuk was so transfixed by the full Battlehawks experience last season — the non-mascot mascots, the stand-on-your-seat cheering, the postgame meet-and-greet with players — that his parents signed the kindergartner up for flag football.

“It just shows the craving for football in St. Louis,” said his dad, Greg Deniszczuk of south St. Louis County.

Whenever Deniszczuk wears his Battlehawks hoodie around town, he’s bound to nab attention.

“You just randomly hear ‘ka-kaw,’” he said. “And you have to shout it back.”

The team’s appeal reaches far beyond the boundaries of St. Louis. Teddy Ricci Jr. has zero ties to the Gateway City. He braved a 10-hour commute last season to see the Battlehawks, the closest XFL squad to his home in northern Wisconsin.

BallHawk1, as Ricci decided to call himself, is “a warrior for spring football who won’t rest until every stadium is full.”

He dyed a patch of his graying beard blue and showed up at every game clad in camouflage pants, a mesh jersey and a winged Viking helmet.

Ricci didn’t know a soul. It didn’t matter.

“They showed me so much love,” he said.

Last month, Ricci relocated to Texas, where three spring-league teams are based. But he remains committed to the Battlehawks, though it now means 13 hours in the car — one way.

He thinks the 2024 lineup looks solid. Head coach Anthony Becht is back. So is McCarron, who asked to be released by the Cincinnati Bengals last month, freeing him up to rejoin the Battlehawks.

But that’s not the real draw anyway, said Ricci.

“Coaches and players come and go,” he said. “It’s the atmosphere of the fans that’s here to stay.”

The team’s longevity is no sure thing. The Battlehawks have weathered shaky times during their short history. The 2020 debut season lasted only weeks before the world went into a COVID-19 lockdown. The XFL folded soon after, before being revived, again, by an ownership group including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Last summer, the XFL announced a merger with the other minor league, the USFL. Sixteen clubs would drop to eight in the new United Football League. The Battlehawks made the cut, but if there is one thing that St. Louis fans know, it’s that nothing is certain.

Still, right now, the team is here. And it’s all bonus football for Christine Moon of Kansas City.

After last year’s Super Bowl, the “rabid” Chiefs devotee was still hungry. She and her husband drove across the state to catch a Battlehawks match.

“It was just electric. When you have that kind of energy, you get pulled into it,” said Moon. “It looked like an NFL game.”

Without the NFL price tag. The cheapest Dome tickets are under $20, or a fraction of what a seat in the peanut gallery at Arrowhead Stadium costs.

And it feels like there’s less at stake than when the Chiefs play. The identity of the city is not riding on a victory. The economy doesn’t hinge on the team’s success.

Everyone wants the Battlehawks to win, but it’s not going to ruin anyone’s day if they don’t. Being there, being part of the group, is pretty great on its own.

“The crowd is having as much fun with each other as it is with the team,” said Moon. “We’re lifetime fans now.”