The XFL’s BattleHawks give St. Louis a new football identity
The St. Louis franchise of the XFL has a head coach in place in former Cincinnati Bengals assistant Jonathan Hayes and a place to call home at the Dome at America’s Center in downtown St. Louis.
On Wednesday, St. Louis football gained an identity: The St. Louis BattleHawks is the nickname of the new team as announced Wednesday by XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck. The team begins play in February of 2020.
The logo depicts a sword outlined with wings. It’s colored in blue, white and gray. The league also provided a black version.
The BattleHawks will be one of eight teams in the rebooted league, owned by Vince McMahon’s Alpha Entertainment, and headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. The XFL, which previously lasted a single season in 2001, will hold its draft in October.
The other seven teams will be the Tampa Bay Vipers,, New York Guardians, Seattle Dragons, Washington DC Defenders, Los Angeles Wildcats, Houston Roughnecks and Dallas Renegades.
“The team names and logos were chosen exclusively to represent the spirit of football fans and their respective cities and signify fun and football and nothing more,” said Luck, prior to announcing the names via a webcast. “The BattleHawks will be the first professional football team born and raised in St. Louis and we couldn’t be more excited.”
So what is a BattleHawk? The team’s new website offers this poetic description:
“Winged Warriors. Preparing for flight. Preparing for fight. They await their orders. Then attack as one. Diving, dodging, swooping, striking. Their mission: create chaos. Their mandate: win at all costs. The St. Louis BattleHawks. Cleared to engage.”
Reaction to the names of the XFL’s franchises was quick. The sports website SB Nation ranked the BattleHawks’ the second best so-bad-they’re-good nickname in the league behind only the Seattle Dragons.
“This name is objectively horrible. Let’s get that out of the way immediately. St. Louis is getting the No. 2 spot because they have a team NAMED THE BATTLEHAWKS,” James Dator wrote in his review. “I don’t know what the hell a Battlehawk is. It’s a hawk that likes to battle, I assume. It sounds like a 1980s cartoon with a Kenny Loggins-esque theme song — probably with a robotic hawk and a dude in a futuristic Stetson. It’s also the name of an old video game ...
“I am buying a Battlehawks jersey despite having zero affiliation or fondness for the city of St. Louis. That’s how much I like this name.”
St. Louis was awarded an XFL franchise in December and in April hired Hayes, a former NFL player and University of Oklahoma and Cincinnati Bengals assistant, to be its head coach
The St. Louis franchise held a player showcase at the former St. Louis Rams training facility in Earth City, Mo. in July.
McMahon promised the rebooted XFL will be free of the gimmicks and personalities that marked its first failed attempt nearly 20 years ago. He also has said a strict code of conduct will be enforced off the field and that political demonstrations, like the Colin Kaepernick-led demonstration wherein he and other players would kneel during the playing of the national anthem, “have no place” in the XFL.
This story was originally published August 21, 2019 at 12:09 PM.