Sports teams doing the business

WHEN the first edition of Business News hit the streets of Perth, the West Coast Eagles were the undisputed sporting kings of Western Australia.

As reigning AFL premiers, the Eagles were part of a financial juggernaut that made the club the envy of every other sporting organisation in the state.

Trevor Nisbett was the club’s football manager.

Thirty years down the track, West Coast is suffering the on-field slump that inevitably follows premiership success in a competition rife with equalisation measures.

Notably, however, it is still the richest sporting organisation in WA and in the AFL.

Mr Nisbett is now chief executive.

That said, there have been some major changes in football during the past three decades.

For a start, women now play professionally, bringing a whole new demographic to the game, both as competitors and supporters.

The other big change, at least in WA, was the creation of the Fremantle Football Club, which has been bereft of on-field success but is now a strong and sustainable organisation.

John Worsfold lifted the 1992 premiership cup after Gary Ablett was kept to three goals.

Other top-level sports have undergone similar metamorphoses.

WA’s men’s cricket teams were extraordinarily successful from 1971-72 to 1998-99, winning 13 of 28 Sheffield Shield titles and nearly as many one-day titles before suffering a drought in the four-day format that was only broken in 2021-22.

Meanwhile, WA’s women broke through for their first one-day title in 2019-20. Both the men and the women now enjoy greater profile from the Big Bash series, though, played under T20 rules.

Perhaps of more significance is the fact that the Western Australian Cricket Association’s chief executive is Christina Matthews, a former Australian Test wicketkeeper who is considered among the sport’s most effective executives after more than 11 years in the job.

The Wildcats, too, were a WA sporting success story in the early 1990s, finally winning their first title in 1990 and backing up in 1991.

The franchise had been privately owned by businessman Bob Williams since 1986, before Kerry Stokes came in as a co-owner in 1990.

 More success followed in 1999-2000 under the ownership of Luc Longley and Andrew Vlahov.

But then came a title drought and, almost, the club’s demise at the end of 2008-09.

It was saved by the late philanthropist Jack Bendat and has since captured six further titles, though its streak of making the playoffs was ended at 35 seasons in the same year Mr Bendat sold the club to the share market-listed Sports Entertainment Group.

Title success has also been a hallmark of the WA baseball team, Perth Heat, founded in 1989 and winner of 15 Claxton Shields, including six Australian Baseball League titles.

In 2018, the Heat was bought by a consortium led by businessman Rory Vassallo and including Eileen Bond.

The Perth Glory wasn’t around when Business News started, rather playing its first match in the old National Soccer League in 1996 under the ownership of Perth businessmen Paul Afkos and Nick Tana.

Its strongest period came under the managerial watch of charismatic German Bernd Stange, losing two grand finals before finally taking the title in 2002-03.

The club won again in the NSL’s final season, 2004. The A-League was formed the following season and hasn’t been so kind to the Glory.

Mining entrepreneur Tony Sage has been the sole owner since 2008, but the Glory has been unable to win a title.

The Perth Orioles netball team struggled for 11 seasons in the national competition from 1997 before the West Coast Fever continued the struggle from 2008, finally winning its first title last year. And rugby, both league and union, seem to have been cursed in this state.

The Western Reds came and went, entering the Australian Rugby League in 1995 and then defecting to the rival Super League competition in 1997 before becoming one of the victims of the unification of the competitions.

The Western Force, meanwhile, joined the Super Rugby competition in 2006 until being axed in 2017.

Billionaire Andrew Forrest kept the club afloat, and it was eventually readmitted to Super Rugby when the international competition went back to a domestic one because of the pandemic in 2020.

The Force are now one of 12 teams in the Super Rugby Pacific competition, which features clubs from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and a Pacific Islands grouping.