The Arena Football League announced a schedule of games to return to the field in 2024, but will not field a team in the St. Louis market, despite teasing the idea earlier this year.
A spokesperson for the St. Charles Family Arena had said Wednesday that the facility was under contract with the league, but did not specifiy further and did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The third iteration of the Arena Football League brand, which in the 1990s had a team that played at what is now The Dome at America’s Center, announced in July it would return next year several years after the league paused due to bankruptcy.
On Thursday, league officials unveiled a 2024 schedule featuring four-team divisions, with franchises in Washington state, Oregon, Montana, Kansas, Texas, Louisiana, South Dakota, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Tennesse and Minnesota.
The league said it would play playoff games in neutral sites that could end up being expansion teams in 2025, when the league hopes to grow to 24 clubs.
The St. Louis region is still waiting to learn the impact of the proposed merger of the XFL and the USFL. The spring leagues announced an intent to join forces in September. The St. Louis Battlehawks led the XFL in attendance in 2020 before the league suspended play. It did so again when the the league returned to the Dome at America’s Center in 2023. The team’s home opener set a modern-day spring football attendance record last spring.