St. Louis will see the return of XFL excitement in February when the Battlehawks kickoff their 2023 season. Professional football returned to St. Louis with the XFL in 2020, generating significant fanfare and raucous crowds in their inaugural season, but the success was toppled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The season was called off in March due to the pandemic, and the XFL suspended operations and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April.
Since then, a new ownership group, led by Dany Garcia, Dwayne Johnson and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital Partners, purchased the XFL and had announced plans to revive the league in 2022.
Now, the St. Louis football team is back, along with seven other XFL teams: the Arlington Renegades, D.C. Defenders, Houston Roughnecks, Orlando Guardians, Seattle Sea Dragons and Vegas Vipers.
Earlier this month, the league finalized the coaching and football operations staff for each of the eight teams. Anastasia Ali will serve as the XFL St. Louis director of team operations. Before joining the XFL, Ali was NFL director of business operations and strategy of football operations.
In that role, she helped plan and execute programs and initiatives that support football operations’ strategic priorities,” according to a job posting by the NFL at glassdoor.com.
