ST. LOUIS – There is new life for The Dome at America’s Center.
The Rams’ owner, Stan Kroenke, disparaged the dome, where the team played for more than 20 seasons before leaving for Los Angeles in 2016. There are St. Louis area business leaders who have called for it to be demolished.
St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and the State of Missouri pay a total of $4 million yearly (until 2024) for dome upkeep. Amid the uproar of Cardinals playoffs at Busch Stadium and the new Centene Stadium for Major League Soccer games starting in the spring, the dome is still bringing in business.
“No, the dome’s not dead,” said Chris Roseman, vice president of the St. Louis Sports Commission, which works to bring major sporting events to St. Louis. “It’s still an asset.”
Mizzou football is coming back to the dome in 2023 for the first time since the Mizzou-Illinois series ended in 2010. The University of Missouri and the Sports Commission successfully lured the game against Memphis next fall to the dome.
The Sports Commission also hopes to lure Mizzou-Illinois football games back to the dome when that series resumes in 2026.
“We’re looking at that with a big red marker around it to see if we can bring that back to St. Louis,” Roseman said. “It was electric. We all saw that. It’s much more than just a football game. It’s the pageantry of college football. I think this town, this city, this region, is charged up to welcome back college football in Mizzou and Memphis in 2023.”
The dome will also host the first of five XFL games beginning in March for a team expected to still be called the Battlehawks.
The River City HBCU Football Classic will mark the first football game at the dome in more than two years when Arkansas Pine Bluff and Alabama A&M square off on Oct. 16.
The St. Louis Sports Commission has already submitted a bid to host the 2024 U.S. Olympic Gymnastics trials at the dome. The dome hosted the gymnastics trials in 2021. Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles posted on social media about the arch and her newfound love of Imo’s pizza.
“You’ve got a convention center that’s hooked up to (the dome),” Roseman said. “So, you’ve got those five convention halls. We filled every one of them in 2021 for the Olympic trials. That can happen again in 2024. It’s great having everything under one roof.”
The dome will host the “Bands of America” high school marching band competition, the 2022 Gateway Dirt Nationals races, and Monster Jam over the next few months.
The final word on St. Louis’s bid for the 2024 Olympic trials should come within three to six months.