There has been a strong reaction to a story I wrote for Code Sports, which was followed by an editorial on SEN Mornings in WA, about the benefits of selling off the West Coast Eagles.
But I would simply make the point: The reason the WAFC should seriously consider privatising the Eagles is that in effect West Coast are already a privately controlled club - they just aren’t paying for the privilege.
If the WAFC - technically West Coast’s owners - aren’t prepared or able to intervene and force change in the club when it has won five of its last 44 games, when it has lost its last 11 by at least 40 points with three by more than 100, when its reserves team is on the bottom of the WAFL with a percentage of less than 40, and when its AFLW team finished 16th and had a percentage of 53, then the odds are the WAFC doesn’t think it is its role to intervene at all.
In other words, the Eagles are already an entity fully independent of the WAFC operating at well beyond arm’s length.
So what do they pay for this? If you add the Eagles Royalties paid to the WAFC over decades it looks an impressive figure climbing into the $160 millions. It is only when you boil it down to one year - compared to West Coast’s much smaller cross town rival Fremantle, that it becomes clear the Eagles are getting this on the cheap.
In 2022, winning two games, having two crowds affected by COVID-19, West Coast generated $83 million for a $6.2 million surplus. They retained $3.5 million and handed $2.7 million to the WAFC.
Fremantle, in a season where they finished sixth, generated $66 million for a $2.43 million profit and handed $2.25 million over to the WAFC.
What this means is that $17 million in extra West Coast revenue added up to just $400,000 in extra royalty to the WAFC. Just $400,000 out of $17 million. It’s a pitiful return.
The Eagles spent more than $76 million to finish 17th. Fremantle, fully resourced and not scrimping, spent less than $61.5 million to play finals.
If West Coast spent, say $65 million, then their surplus, in a as bad a year as you can imagine, would be closer to $20 million than $6 million. And if you add onto that the $55 million share portfolio the club has, part of the $109 million in net assets it possesses, what might the Eagles be worth? More to the point, is it likely to be worth more to the wider WA football community than the $2.7 million they handed over last year. There is an obvious answer.
WA football stakeholders were told a week ago that there were long term concerns about the sustainability of the WAFL competition. That their crowds were trending down, and their reliance on WAFC funding was trending up. That the age demographic of their audience was old and male.
And with the Eagles in the doldrums, a 10-year review of the funding model out of Optus Stadium may indicate that football revenue from the stadium might fall short of the $11 million the WA footy system is guaranteed until 2027.
If the WAFC’s real mission is to protect the long term interests of WA footy and not to just have West Coast’s back, there is an obvious answer to producing a spike in available funding. The Eagles must either pay a royalty which better reflects their ability to generate wealth, or the WAFC would be better off selling them.
And Eagles supporters, frustrated by the lack of change at a club with such a bleak run over two years, might find business people more willing to make change when it was actually their money on the line.
A Twitter responder to my story described my idea as silly. But the following is what is silly about the current situation and this actually happened when the state government was butting heads with the AFL at the height of the Perth Stadium negotiation in WA. A state government negotiator, keen to see greater AFL funding of WA footy, was told that WA footy had plenty of money and it was hardly the AFL’s fault that it was all in West Coast’s accounts.
In other words the Eagles riches, which the WA footy system can’t access, actually hurt the WAFC’s ability to access funding for the local system. Now that is silly.