St. Louis has emerged as the proving ground for the XFL.

The Battlehawks’ first home game against the Arlington Renegades on Sunday at The Dome — where the NFL’s Rams played before moving to Los Angeles — set an attendance record for the XFL with 38,310 fans.

The Rams played in St. Louis from 1995 to 2015, winning Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta on Jan. 30, 2000.

That’s nearly half of Week 4’s season-high attendance of 75,000 across the league’s four games. For the year, attendance is more than 220,000.

The high attendance doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon, which bodes well for the league as a whole. St. Louis has more than 18,000 season-ticket holders — more than double the 2020 edition — and has already sold more than 27,000 seats for its second home game on Saturday.

The city is also the top XFL market by ticket revenue and local partnerships. 

TV ratings through the first three weeks of the season, however, have been a different story. After a slow start to the new season, ratings declined by 50% from Week 1 to Week 2. In Week 3, viewership dropped 11% compared to Week 2.

League’s Relaunch

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2020 due to pandemic-related effects, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Dany Garcia, and RedBird Capital Partners purchased the XFL for $15 million in August of that year from WWE founder Vince McMahon’s Alpha Entertainment.

In May 2022, the league struck a multiyear deal with Disney to show all 43 games across its family of channels including ABC, ESPN networks, and FX.

With the field of 68 set, casual and hardcore bettors alike can turn their attention toward March Madness — where they’ll be part of a massive contingent wagering on the festivities.

A new survey from the American Gaming Association finds that 68 million American adults — or roughly a quarter of that population — plan to bet a total of $15.5 billion on the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament.

Within that figure, 56.3 million plan to enter a bracket contest, 21.5 million plan to bet casually with friends, and 31 million plan to place a traditional bet online, at a retail sportsbook, or with a bookie.

The expanded access to legal sports betting — including, most recently, in Massachusetts — is leading to more novice bettors:

Three-quarters of surveyed online bettors say this will be their first time betting on March Madness online.

The bettors surveyed are also keying in on certain teams to win the national championship: 9% are backing Kentucky, 8% are on Texas A&M, and 6% are taking either Alabama, Gonzaga, or UCLA.

Given March Madness is a multi-week event, it should be no surprise that there are projected to be more bettors than the Super Bowl (50 million).

However, the magnitude of the Big Game brings out the big bets, as the Super Bowl was projected for $500 million more in handle ($16 billion) than the basketball tournament.

Arte Moreno could have set a record for an MLB team sale.

The owner of the Los Angeles Angels told Sports Illustrated that he had three offers on the table “considerably above the Mets’ number.” Steve Cohen bought the New York Mets for a record $2.4 billion in 2020 — at a time when the team carried $350 million in debt.

Moreno noted that all three offers were at least $200 million above what Cohen paid. Moreno also said that he had a fourth inquiry from Japan that didn’t result in a bid.

Moreno said he was planning to hold onto a 5-10% stake in the team. In the end, he couldn’t part with any of it: “In my heart, I just couldn’t go through with it.”

The team initially landed on the market after the collapse of a $320 million land deal with the city of Anaheim for the area around the stadium. The deal was canceled following allegations of corruption against Anaheim mayor Harry Sidhu, who resigned amid the scandal.

Moreno was not implicated in an FBI investigation regarding the case, but Sidhu was accused of providing confidential information to the team in the hopes of securing a $1 million campaign donation. Sidhu has denied any wrongdoing.

FC Barcelona is pausing a plan to raise $1.6 billion primarily for stadium renovations.

The club reportedly froze up when confronted with an increase in U.S. borrowing costs and is now weighing other options to raise the money, according to the Financial Times.

In February, Kroll Bond Rating Agency had given Barca’s financial plans for Camp Nou’s renovation a triple-B-plus rating — but later downgraded it to a triple-B due to a revised financing structure.

Just one week ago, it was reported that the club was considering restructuring the plan to pay back its loans earlier.

Still, Barcelona plans to move forward and have a full plan by the end of March. The club’s current plans have the renovations complete by 2025 — but that could change given the delay in financing.

The Referee Scandal

Meanwhile, Barca is still dealing with the fallout from allegations that it bribed referees for several years — and now its biggest rival is piling on.

After Spanish prosecutors launched an investigation and filed charges of corruption last week, Real Madrid has announced it will participate in the trial against Barcelona.

“The club has agreed that, in defense of its legitimate rights, it will appear at the trial when the judge opens it up to the affected parties,” Real Madrid announced.

Barcelona admitted that it paid a firm owned by former La Liga refereeing committee member Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira at least $7.4 million — but says it was all for legitimate purposes like consulting and video.