The West Australian Football League has played an integral part in the state’s sporting landscape since 1885.
However, since the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers joined the VFL/AFL in 1986 and 1994, respectively, WAFL clubs have struggled to maintain their crowds, memberships, revenue streams and sponsorship.
Despite this, six of the traditional nine WAFL clubs (excluding West Coast’s reserves team) posted net surpluses last year.
In a saturated marketplace, WAFL clubs are taking a non-traditional approach to generating income and ensuring the league’s future.
Since 1934, Swan Districts Football Club has been a constant presence in Perth’s eastern suburbs and hills.
History and tradition is everywhere you look at Steel Blue Oval: from the white picket fence around the ground to the heritage-listed RA McDonald and Bill Walker timber grandstands.
Since the glory days of Swans’ premiership three-peat in the early 1980s, the club has faced financial hardship on several occasions.
The most recent of these was between 2012 and 2014, when the club’s debt reached around $770,000. This came just two years after the Swans won the league grand final against Claremont, in 2010, at the now-demolished Subiaco Oval.
“The critical financial concern was the liquidity ratio ... up until 2018,” Swans chief executive Jeff Dennis said.
“The significant turnaround was the result of repurpose and restructure with governance and financial discipline.
“By 2019, the club was debt free.
“It has continued to improve during the past financial year. It [financial turnaround] was a result of hard work, financial restraint, growing new income streams and strong support from members, sponsors and financial partners as a result of our strategic direction.”
Mr Dennis brought substantial sports administration and financial management experience to the role in 2017, across football, basketball and soccer.
He said now the club had a lower risk tolerance it could invest in new growth opportunities, providing they aligned with the Swans’ values, vision and purpose.
“We’ve transformed from a traditional, narrowly focused football club to a broad community enabler,” Mr Dennis said.
“We’re educating, energising and mobilising people, including our staff, volunteers, players, members and supporters, to be an inclusive club helping to strengthen community, develop people and create social value.
“While football is in our DNA, it doesn’t define us. It’s a vehicle assisting us to develop people and engage and build a reciprocal sense of belonging between the club and community.
“Our purpose is empowering communities and individuals to create better futures.
“Our vision is to be a high-performing and sustainable club delivering positive social impact in communities, families, and for individuals.
“And our results speak for themself.
“We measure the social impact we deliver and it gives us confidence we’re providing significant social value to our communities.”
Swans posted a net surplus of $89,855 in season 2023, up from $64,004 the previous year.
From its overall revenue of $4.76 million, the club generated $1.78 million from its community programs, up from $1.61 million in 2022.
A further $358,020 came from bar sales, $116,914 from catering sales and $47,723 from merchandise sales.
Swans also received $489,233 in grants from the West Australian Football Commission, up from $455,233 in 2022.
Mr Dennis said Swans’ investment in and support for community and Indigenous programs were integral to the club’s overall standing.
“We’ve been on this journey for the past seven years and have become fundamentally a different, far more culturally rich club than we were before.”
Long term, Mr Dennis, said Swans were in favour of WAFL clubs guiding the competition into the future.
“Our club is a strong advocate for decentralising the WAFC to reallocate funding, enabling clubs to drive football,” Mr Dennis told Business News.
“Clubs are the engine room of sport.
“They can have a multiplier effect.
"The central body can’t. Players, volunteers, members and supporters are emotionally connected to a club, not a central body, and they’re valuable community connectors.
“If the WAFC can help enable and mobilise clubs to be more proactive and strategic in its community connection, the growth of football will be significantly enhanced.”
Further west
Navy blue and gold runs through the veins of Claremont Football Club chief executive officer Darcy Coffey, an accomplished football administrator for more than 14 years.
While the Tigers have posted net surpluses of more than $150,000 for the past two seasons – and regularly have the majority of their men’s and women’s senior teams playing finals – Mr Coffey recalls when things weren’t so rosy at Tigerland.
“We’ve posted a few profits, but certainly when we first moved into our new building we had no money in the bank, we just had debt,” he said.
“It’s been a stark turnaround in a short space of time.”
The club’s decision to expand its commercial partnerships during the past decade – ranging from a venue naming rights agreement with Revo Fitness, to having commercial tenancies, apartments and new club facilities in and around Revo Fitness Stadium as part of the Claremont on the Park redevelopment project – ultimately helped secure the Tigers’ off-field financial future.
Revo has held naming rights at Tigerland since 2019, with the present deal signed through until at least 2029.
“Having the new facilities and all the things they offer, including the function rooms and so on, has been incredible for us and allowed us to draw revenue, engage in the community and bring people in,” Mr Coffey told Business News.
“The other part to it, and probably the key part, is having tenancies within the building we own and being able to draw revenue from them.
“We can then make a dollar and put the money back into running our footy programs, which has been fantastic.
“It’s allowed us to invest heavily in our juniors and women’s programs, which we have done.”
Mr Coffey said increased community access to the facilities and the opportunity to form relationships that resulted were also important.
For example, last month the club hosted its inaugural Tigers Connect Business Forum, where organisations within the club’s network were able to come together in a bid to learn and share best practice across a wide range of industries.
Long term, the Claremont chief executive hopes WAFL clubs’ funding streams – from general revenue or state government-WAFC grants – will facilitate the increasing emergence of women’s football, along with meeting the needs of community and regional portfolios within each club’s metro and regional zones.
Seven players from Claremont’s women’s team were selected in the state squad for the recent WAFLW outing against South Australia at Optus Stadium.
Port plays
Despite not playing league finals last season, South Fremantle Football Club posted a net surplus of $110,100, with management attributing this achievement down to commercial support, along with embracing non-traditional income streams and women’s football.
“From our perspective, we’ve had a really significant focus on the commercial sustainability of the footy club,” Bulldogs chief executive Cam Britt said.
“I know while WAFL crowd and membership numbers as an industry are somewhat stagnant, and some are in decline, we are really quite proud that we are growing as a footy club year on year.
“In the past five years we’ve actually doubled our commercial partnerships, nearing one million dollars of commercial support [$809,197 in sponsorship] last year.”
While the Bulldogs have been able to generate success from traditional income streams such as merchandise and membership, Mr Britt told Business News the club was also succeeding across several non-traditional avenues.
“It’s about thinking laterally and longer term around how we can generate passive and sustainable income,” he said.
“Which frankly isn’t affected by win-loss ratio, which is such an aspect of sport.”
Fan engagement is another top priority at South Fremantle, something that will likely be enhanced following the proposed redevelopment of Fremantle Community Bank Oval.
The Bulldogs have played 124 seasons at the venue and last November signed a new 40-year licence agreement to remain at their spiritual home.
“Those fans I spoke about who are so central to our existence … I think we are giving them a great on-field product and value, but facility and amenity wise we’re letting them down,” Mr Britt said.
“We’re so determined to see a reality of the wonderful Fremantle Oval precinct being redeveloped into a contemporary home for South Fremantle and for the Fremantle Dockers AFLW team.
“Also, give our fans the opportunity to sit in a nice seat, use some nice bathrooms, have some great viewing angles for a game and, furthermore, reward their loyalty and support of our footy club.”
Leveraging the ‘W’
Like many clubs, the West Perth Football Club has relished the growth of women’s football.
Presently in their third WAFLW campaign, the Falcons began June with an eight-three win-loss record, having won just five games last year and finishing winless in their inaugural season.
However, West Perth chief executive officer Joe McCarthy told Business News there were a lot more benefits to their female football program than on-field success.
“Of the $638,954 in sponsorship revenue from last year, $200,000 of that would be through WAFLW sponsorship,” Mr McCarthy said.
“Our WAFLW sponsorship is huge, with Rio Tinto, Delta Lithium and BGC as the major three.
“They are three significant companies in WA that support our female pathway and development of female leaders, both in the community and at our football club.
“It is very positive, and we are moving in a positive direction this year in terms of beating that figure.
“We have a great mixture of loyal West Perth WAFL supporters and new WAFLW supporters who support the innovation of female football.”
West Perth left its traditional home of Leederville Oval at the end of the 1993 season and has been based in Joondalup since.
There have been several attempts from outside stakeholders to entice the club to rebrand as the Joondalup Falcons.
At the start of the inaugural Westar Rules season in 1997, the Falcons were briefly referred to as the Joondalup Falcons, however, this reverted to West Perth by mid-season.
Earlier this year, an amendment to a $30,000 sponsorship agreement with the City of Joondalup included a condition that the club consider changing its name to the Joondalup Falcons.
The club promptly rejected the sponsorship proposal and withdrew its application.
“We exist because of our members,” Mr McCarthy told Business News.
“They are the stakeholders and shareholders of our club. So if the majority of members – and I know they, along with club staff do – want to maintain the tradition of our club, the West Perth Football Club, this will never change.
“We are proud of thirty years in Joondalup this year and love our northern corridor, but we will always be known as the West Perth Football Club.”
The Falcons have also identified a raft of diverse fan engagement measures in a bid to maintain healthy attendances at Pentanet Stadium.
One of these initiatives – a league activation space called WAFL Wonderland – involves music, food trucks and kids’ activities at a selected game each weekend This helped the club attract a crowd of 4,350 to its Easter Thursday home opener under new lights against Claremont.
The Falcons generated $2.51 million in revenue during the 2023 season, up from $2.45 million in 2022, and posted a net surplus of $51,883, which was up from $24,672 during the prior corresponding period.
Lean times
Last season was a challenging one off field for the Peel Thunder Football Club, which posted a net loss of $175,219. This followed its $145,271 loss in 2022.
Since the Mandurah-based club’s inaugural campaign in an expanded nine-team competition in 1997, both its WAFL licence and long-term future have been constant topics of discussion, due to lean periods both on and off field.
In 2014, Peel officially became aligned with the Fremantle Football Club under an arrangement where Dockers players not considered for AFL selection each week are eligible to represent the Thunder at WAFL level.
The Thunder have won two league premierships, in 2016 and 2017.
Competing at WAFLW level since 2019, the Thunder have been extremely successful, winning two premierships in the competition’s first five seasons.
Off the field, the club signed a venue naming rights agreement with Bendigo Bank in 2009, with its headquarters renamed from Rushton Park to Bendigo Bank Stadium.
A year later, with financial support from the federal government, work began on a new main grandstand along with spacious club facilities considered among the competition’s best.
In 2021, the Thunder signed a new venue naming rights agreement with Mandurah-based Lane Group, with the venue now officially known as Lane Group Stadium.
“They’ve [Lane Group] been our major sponsor for the best part of five years,” Thunder chief executive Paul Lekias told Business News.
“The naming rights is in the last year of its three-year agreement, so we are currently having conversations with them about renewing and extending that.
“We’re certainly having some positive talks there. They’re a magnificent sponsor of ours, not just in the naming rights space but as a major partner of the club.”
For Mr Lekias, community involvement and access plays an important role in the maximisation of the venue’s facilities.
“Certainly from a facility viewpoint we are fortunate to have a great venue,” he said.
“We are constantly working closely with the City of Mandurah because as input costs increase we’ve just got to continue to provide the evidence of community benefit that we provide.
“We obviously share the building with the Mandurah Mustangs, which compete in the Peel Football Netball League.
“We are trying to make sure both clubs are sustainable long term, as in the current climate it’s certainly expensive.
“Our ability to commercialise the venue … and when I say commercialise, it means hiring it out to community groups or business contacts throughout the region, certainly provides that opportunity to us.”
With the present cost-of-living crisis affecting scores of businesses and people nationwide, the importance of retaining sponsorship and navigating the many moving pieces of a WAFL club’s operation has never been more important.
“The biggest thing for us – and I’ve got no doubt all the other clubs are the same – is when you are operating on such tight margins as a sporting club, it doesn’t take much for things to go pear-shaped,” Mr Lekias said.
“This could be as little as one dollar per head spent less per home game. I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you put that across ten home games and you average 2,000 people a game, there’s $20,000 that impacts your bottom line.
“There’s certainly plenty of things we need to be mindful of.
“We set a pretty conservative budget and ideally try to make sure from a revenue viewpoint that there is some upside, and really tightly try to manage our expenses so that we stay in the black and ultimately remain sustainable long term.”
Costs bite
Despite tasting league premiership success at both WAFL and WAFLW level last year, the East Fremantle Football Club posted a net loss of $139,924.
The Sharks also finished in the red a year earlier, to the value of $322,104.
This is primarily due to East Fremantle Oval, formerly known as New Choice Homes Park, being unavailable since the end of 2021 due to a major redevelopment project.
While playing home matches at the WACA Ground during 2022 and 2023, East Fremantle’s revenue and expenses were hit.
Initially, the Sharks were due to return to playing matches at their traditional home ground on May 11, however, at time of writing, this has been pushed back to June 29 following issues out of the club’s control.
Ground share
The Subiaco Football Club was the only other WAFL club not to record a net surplus in 2023, posting a net loss of $159,055 after its $224,370 loss in 2022.
East Perth Football Club, which shares Leederville’s Sullivan Logistics Stadium with the Lions, bounced back to post a surplus of $32,344 in 2023 after incurring a net loss of $60,863 in 2022.
“We are fortunate to have so many loyal and committed long-term sponsors,” Royals chief executive Dean Turner said.
“We pride ourselves on being able to provide benefits for their business through networking and business development, as well as offering fantastic fundraising events.
“Last year, we saw a significant lift in gate receipts in line with the [league] team having more success.”
Perth Football Club, based out of Mineral Resources Park in Lathlain, generated a surplus of $6,824 for the 2023 season, down from $89,164 the previous season.
Despite its revenue increasing by $361,076 last year, the club was affected by rising costs across several areas.
