OPINION: No sacked coaches — The AFLW’s canary in the coalmine.

Richmond AFLW coach Ryan Ferguson — Photo sourced from richmondfc.com.au

“If people are emotionally invested in your product, you win”.

Those words were uttered by professional wrestling commentator Jim Ross on an online TV series looking back at the ‘Monday Night Wars’ between the WWF and it’s rival WCW.

To give more context, it was the late 90s and professional wrestling was at it peak with millions of people tuning in each week to watch either promotion. Think about it; Two TV ‘sports’ programs, where the outcome is fixed, the characters are fictional, but viewers are hooked.

It all comes back to the story telling, and promos the wrestlers cut each week, building up a feeling of wanting to cheer for the baby-faced underdog to win, or a feeling of anger you have with the cheating heel and how you desperately want to see them get their butt kicked.

Advertisers try every day to touch your feelings, and in turn make you associate your feelings with their product. Just like when they show in slow motion that steaming hot pizza with the mozzarella stretching as they pick up a slice, you’re feeling of being hungry kicks in, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s the number on the screen for you to get that pizza delivered to you right now!

GWS Giants AFLW coach Cam Bernasconi — Photo by Mark Metcalfe (AFL Media)

The Australian Football League (AFL) has tried tapping into that for the Women’s competition (AFLW), but only one emotion — the feel good emotion.

That worked for the first season. It was about history (or herstory), taking your family, your friends, or yourself along to say you were there when it all began. However, from a marketing standpoint, ‘feel good’ wears off quickly. It needs to be used sparingly, and at the right moments.

Whether we like to admit it or not, anger is the most powerful emotion. One just needs to look at politics. Sure, there be some faux-inspiring slogan used in election campaigns by all parties, but when you break it down, they either want you to be angry because the other side will take something away from you, or make you angry at a group of people who are (rightly or wrongly) to blame for why your life is in the situation it is.

That anger drives content, engagement, political donations, rallies/protests, votes, and ultimately, power.

Essendon AFLW coach Natalie Wood — Photo: Getty Images

There are varying degrees of anger, from wanting to do harm to others, to the more mild, “I’m ticked off with how my footy team is performing”.

That latter example is why the AFL men’s competition pulls in the billions of dollars it gets for TV rights. Broadcasters pay the big bucks because of how emotionally invested fans are in the AFL men’s product. They call up the radio talkback lines after the game, feeling angry that the umpires did them wrong, or a certain player(s) put in a poor effort, or the coach is out of their depth, or the club board needs to be ousted.

Although they’ll never come out and say it publicly, the AFL loves this. Why? Because it then drives radio talkback, newspaper/online content, TV reports and social media engagement for the week. Each and every time the league and its clubs are be written about, those metrics are measured by a media monitoring team, which the AFL then turn around to potential corporate sponsors or broadcast partners to show the increased level of engagement there is with their league. Corporates see the number of eyeballs on the league and pay to get seen.

Geelong Cats AFLW coach Dan Lowther — Photo by Julian Smith (AAP)

How does this all relate to the AFLW, and why is this a canary in the coalmine?

This year we’ve seen some teams implode. Richmond, who were seen by many as a team that should be featuring in finals action again, start the season with a deplorable 0–7 record. Somehow, the Tigers decided to extend the contract of coach Ryan Ferguson until the end of 2026, despite never leading his side to a finals victory (after now six seasons in charge).

The Greater Western Sydney Giants announced in late September that they had extended coach Cam Bernasconi until the end of the 2026 season as well. This is despite Bernasconi’s record at the time being finishes of 11th, 3rd last, 3rd last… and now after this season, 2nd last.

And then there’s Essendon. Natalie Wood just missed the finals in her first year, and then finished 8th the next two years, only for the side to be blown out of the water in both finals appearances. It was worth arguing that Essendon only made the finals due to a soft draw (and other imploding teams), and when faced with a harder draw this year — and to be fair, a run of injuries — had her game plan exposed with the Dons going on a shocking eight game losing streak. Three of those games, they only kicked one goal!

Others may also argue the Dan Lowther at Geelong may not be up to it, after the last two disappointing seasons, or Sam Wright at Collingwood seeing little improvement in his team after two seasons.

Either way, there’s something in common with all of them. The lack of genuine fan anger.

Sure, you might find one thread on a team’s forum where a dozen people will vent their frustrations, but are the talkback lines lighting up? Is social media filled days after a game with fans calling for the coaches head? Is there small protests outside a club headquarters (who can forget the manure stunt years ago at Richmond)? Are the club coteries — those who pour big money into their clubs —making noises that they’ll call for a special meeting to throw out the board?

The answer is a big fat NO — and that’s a problem for the health of the league. Side note: In one club’s online forum, the team’s poor performance just saw people give up talking about the team altogether.

Collingwood AFLW coach Sam Wright — Photo: AFL Photos

As mentioned earlier, if the fans are screaming about Bernasconi, Ferguson, Wood, etc.. even if they don’t eventually get the chop, it’s still good news for the league. It means media outlets will pick up on the fans emotions. Articles will be written trying to pick apart what has gone wrong with these teams. TV News crews will show up at clubs asking hard questions and reporting on what was said. Radio talkback will be talking about the AFLW, instead of horse racing, the cricket or their default position, the AFL Men’s competition — even if there’s nothing to really talk about (hey, let’s roll out the who makes your best players ever to wear the number five topic again).

The increased coverage works in everyone’s favour, even a coach that could be fired — heck, they all know the old saying “there’s two types of coaches; those who’ve been sacked, and those about to be sacked”! Increased coverage means more eyeballs on the league, which means more broadcast and sponsor dollars, which means greater investment in the league.

Unfortunately, the emotion we have now for the AFLW is one of apathy. This is not good for the hardcore fans, the players, or even the coaches themselves.

Without the increased coverage and scrutiny, why would a board sack an AFLW coach mid-season (or mid contract) and pay that out, while also having to pay for a new coach and work around soft-cap restrictions?

This next question is a serious question anyone who believes in the AFLW needs to ask themselves; what decade (yes, I said decade) will it be, when an AFL club has a men’s team that is doing well, but a women’s team that is doing very poorly, and the powerful coteries make a move to sack their club’s board because of the poor performance of the women’s team?

Based on the answer to that last question, the AFLW’s canary in the coalmine is barely breathing.

Peter Holden is the founder of Women’s Australian Rules Football Radio (WARF Radio Plus) which has broadcast nearly 500 matches of women’s Aussie Rules, including more than 150 AFLW matches.