ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - St. Louis' relationship with the NFL might still be determined as rocky due to how ugly and messy the situation was with the Rams leaving the city for Los Angeles, but the city's love for professional football has not waned.
Last weekend, 32,969 fans showed up at the Dome At America's Center to watch United Football League (UFL) action, with the St. Louis Battlehawks dominating 22-8 victory against the Houston Roughnecks.
St. Louis football fans have showed out in the spring football league games, with 40,317 showing for the Battlehawks home opener in April, marking a spring football league attendance record, surpassing the record of 38,810 that was previously set by Battlehawks back in 2023.
The attendance at Battlehawks games has impressed Pro Football Talk owner and NFL insider Mike Florio, who wrote a column that the city has shown time and time again it can host pro football and the NFL would be wise to consider St. Louis an expansion spot in the future.
"At some point, St. Louis should be an option. Especially if St. Louis loves football enough to support the devotion of taxpayer money to the construction of a stadium," Florio wrote. "If the NFL wants to play in a place where a**es will be in seats, it needs to be taking St. Louis seriously."
Florio discussed his column further with Chris Rongey and Amy Marxkors on the Chris and Amy Show Tuesday afternoon to go further in-depth about his comments.
"You look at what the Battlehawks are doing and what got my attention was seeing 40,000, 30,000, and 32,000 in three home games," said Florio. "That is a thing that can't be ignored because the other seven cities in the UFL aren't doing anything. I think any week the Battlehawks has a home game, they draw more than the other three home locations combined, so that is something that needs to be taken seriously."
Florio thinks that it will take time for the NFL and St. Louis move on from how messy the Rams situations became and says both sides need to take time to soften and move on from the messy Rams situation.
"I think it would take time the feelings (between the NFL and St. Louis) to soften from both ways," said Florio. "From St. Louis, to trust the NFL again and from the NFL to set aside what happened and recognize this is a viable market."