Tickets as low as $4 for UFL championship game in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS — The Battlehawks were the runaway leaders in the United Football League for attendance this season. Will that excitement carry to Sunday’s UFL championship game, which will be held at The Dome at America’s Center but feature two out-of-state teams?

On Wednesday, tickets were priced as low as $9 on Ticketmaster for the game between the Birmingham Stallions and the San Antonio Brahmas. Many seats were still available in nearly all sections, including from ticketholders trying to resell them.

On resale website StubHub, prices were as low as $4 a ticket. Since Monday, fewer than two dozen were resold, according to data from SeatData.io, which tracks ticket sales across ticket resale platforms.

Battlehawks games have previously drawn an average of 34,365 fans, outpacing any other team in the league and filling about half of the Dome’s capacity. Brian Stull, spokesperson for the Battlehawks, said 73% of buyers are season ticket holders.

But attendance for the Battlehawks’ playoff loss to San Antonio this past Sunday was the lowest of the season, at 30,237, according to unofficial numbers.

Brian Hall, a spokesperson for the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission, pointed out that tickets were only on sale for one week before the game. Still, he called the sales “very strong” so far, although he did not share specific figures.

“St. Louis fans are passionate about their football and the opportunity to show off their city,” Russ Brandon, the UFL’s president and CEO, said in a statement to the Post-Dispatch. “They love their Battlehawks and that fandom has made this city our biggest market in terms of attendance and revenue. This city shows out to support big events, and we know they will on Sunday.”

Downtown businesses are hoping for strong sales, driven by football fans from Alabama and Texas.

Hotels are expecting a 75% increase in occupancy Sunday night compared to last year’s Father’s Day weekend, Hall said. Plus, restaurants such as Sugarfire Smokehouse, Hot Pizza Cold Beer and Hi-Pointe Drive-In anticipate 50% more sales Sunday afternoon and evening.

Hall said the visitors commission has been advertising the game on social media, targeting Texas and Alabama. The game, he added, will bring more exposure to St. Louis, with a national TV broadcast on FOX.

He said the city hosting the game proves that “St. Louisans come out again and again for sports. We’re a football town.”

This is the first UFL championship game following the merger of the XFL and the USFL. The new league announced in March that St. Louis would host the championship game. “Our teams will feed off the energy and excitement that the St. Louis fans bring to the building,” Daryl Johnston, the UFL’s executive vice president of football operations, said in a statement at the time.

Brett Boyle, a marketing professor at St. Louis University and executive director of SportMetric Consulting, said hardcore UFL fans, especially from Alabama, probably would make the trip to St. Louis.

“St. Louis has nice venues, it’s in a central location, we treat visitors well,” Boyle said.

But Boyle is pessimistic about spring football leagues in general. Fans are focused on other sports during the spring and summer, and the UFL’s attendance numbers outside St. Louis aren’t encouraging for the league.

“There’s not enough of an appetite,” Boyle said.

Last month, Johnston acknowledged the league’s attendance struggles.

“That’s the biggest challenge so far in season one,” he told the Post-Dispatch. “St. Louis isn’t even where we want it to be.”