JUSTIN LANGER: Alex Pearce’s honest answer about sport and sponsors reveals the middle ground

“How much of a say do you think players should have when a sponsor’s values don’t line up with your own?”

It was the kind of question that makes a room lean forward.

Fremantle captain Alex Pearce was on stage at a Global Citizen event in Perth on Monday when St Kilda’s AFLW player Nicola Barr put it to him.

Pearce laughed, wondered out loud why he’d been the lucky one to get it, and then did something I really admired.

He didn’t dismiss it, he didn’t duck it. Instead he gave an authentic and honest answer to a tough question.

“Look, I’m really glad that this is a hard question to answer, and I’m really glad that it’s a topic that’s discussed, and it’s controversial because I think it does show that within the community we can have influence on who sponsors our teams and who sponsors different areas within our community,” he replied.

Freo’s skipper followed on with: “Often these decisions are made at boardroom level and are out of our hands and are out of the fans’ and members’ hands. But we’ve seen plenty of instances where public opinion has been able to affect change, and ultimately the boardrooms and the presidents who run our sporting organisations.”

Pearce’s admission that this was uncomfortable, but healthy, shows the conundrum often faced by organisations who are more and more in need of healthy, loyal sponsors in an ever-tightening market.

For context, Woodside has sponsored the Dockers since 2010. They have been an incredible sponsor of the club through thick and thin.

As their CEO Liz Westcott said following the Global Citizen event on Monday: “We love our partnership with the Fremantle Football Club, we’ve been there for more than 15 years. And it was wonderful to see the club do so well this year.”

In 2023, 8000 people signed a petition urging the club to walk away from the deal. Only recently, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, the Dockers’ No.1 ticket-holder, was photographed on stage in America wearing a purple guernsey with the Woodside logo blacked out.

Despite some of these views, the Fremantle board, chose to re-sign a deal extending to 2027.

Here lies the conundrum.

Pearce, like every one of us, has his own views, values and convictions.

The organisation he leads has commitments and responsibilities that won’t always marry up with them, which can lead to a strain in finding the right balance.

Having sat on just about every side of the table — as a player, a coach, and board member at the West Coast Eagles and Mineral Resources — I can tell you the view changes depending on which chair you’re sitting in.

My first lesson in this came at my very first West Coast board meeting 10 years ago.

On the agenda was the Hungry Jack’s sponsorship. A passionate and generous sponsor, the legendary Jack Cowin and his company had been wonderful partners to the club. But when I was asked my personal view, I couldn’t help myself.

Why, I asked, would an elite sporting team be sponsored by a fast-food company?

Afterwards, senior board member Chris Wharton took me aside and with a wise smile told me he absolutely respected my opinion. He then followed up with something I’ve never forgotten.

“Now that you have seen the books and read the balance sheets, you will understand how valuable that sponsorship money is to the club, to the staff, to the players and to the community programs that reach kids in every corner of the State,” he said.

That was the day I started seeing the business of sport. Not just the business of winning and losing on the field, but as the business.

That understanding has helped me enormously in broadening my view of the sporting world that was once isolated to pure high performance as a player and coach.

Over the last decade, my eyes have been opened to the whole ecosystem, and I see how fragile it can be when considering sponsors, broadcasters, membership, fan engagement, risk assessment, community, governance, finance and all that goes with the full picture.

This breadth of understanding, whilst fascinating, has also had its challenges.

During COVID, a brutal time for everyone, I knew from the bigger picture that we had to keep the show on the road. Had we refused to tour England, Bangladesh or the West Indies — or had England refused to tour Australia — the game would have faced financial ruin.

Add to this that the fans stuck at home, locked down and starved of normal life, would have been robbed of one of the few escapes left to them: sport.

So, I argued for the need to keep playing, leading to some of the players feeling like I didn’t have their backs. Some thought I’d taken the side of the administrators over the players.

That frustrated me more than I ever let on because I knew I had their backs more than they could ever believe.

If the game had gone broke, they wouldn’t have been paid. Their livelihoods would have disappeared, let alone the chance to play the game they loved which, at the time, had to be played inside COVID health protections that were expensive and fit for VIPs.

That’s the trap with the balance sheet. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it. And those who haven’t seen it can mistake your pragmatism for indifference.

Once you recognise all the complexities of decision-making, you understand that no big decision is ever taken lightly.

You also learn that you can’t please everyone, simply because we all have different lenses through which we see the world.

In 2022, Pat Cummins confirmed he would no longer appear in advertising for Alinta Energy. At the time it was Cricket Australia’s principal partner in a deal reported to be worth around $40 million.

Pat had been open about his views on climate. Cricket Australia announced the partnership would end in 2023, citing a change in Alinta’s brand strategy and insisted Pat’s conversations with the CEO hadn’t influenced that decision.

Plenty weren’t convinced.

The backlash ran both ways. Some applauded him for standing on principle. Others pointed out he had fronted the very same ads and benefited from sponsorship money as a professional cricketer.

He said at the time: “It has always been a balance. We have seen certain players make decisions based on religions, or certain foods they eat, alcohol and gambling, where they won’t partner with specific partners . . . every organisation has a responsibility to do what’s right for the sport and what they think is right for the organisation, and, I hope, society when it moves forward.”

Netball’s experience was more painful. Also in 2022, Hancock Prospecting agreed to a $15m, four-year deal to fund the Diamonds’ high-performance program. It looked like a lifeline. Netball Australia had lost more than $7m across two COVID-hit years.

But Indigenous player Donnell Wallam reportedly raised concerns about offensive comments made nearly four decades earlier by Gina Rinehart’s late father, Lang Hancock, sparking a week of turmoil.

Despite Netball Australia and the Diamonds’ captain backing the deal, Hancock walked away, saying it did not want to add to the sport’s disunity.

The hole was eventually filled by Visit Victoria. In other words, by taxpayers, with the money spread over a longer period. The Australian Institute of Sport later topped up netball’s funding by a further $9.4m.

The players kept their principles, and the sport kept its doors open, but it was a bruising chapter, and the question of who pays for elite sport, and on whose terms, has never really gone away.

The truth is, anyone wanting to can pick a hole in any sponsor. Fast food, fossil fuels, banks, betting, alcohol, airlines, tech. If purity is the test, sport and charities will go hungry.

Last weekend Telethon raised $101,277,705.

Telethon is the most extraordinary expression of Western Australian generosity where kids empty their piggy banks and families, schools, small businesses donate in both dollars and spirit.

As do the big end of town. On the list of million-dollar partners sit Woodside, Hancock Prospecting, Chevron, BHP, Rio Tinto, Mineral Resources and many more.

So, here’s my question.

Would we ask Perth Children’s Hospital to hand that money back?

Would the researchers chasing world-first breakthroughs say ‘no thank you’?

Would the family of a child taking her first steps after years of therapy wish the cheque had never been written?

I suspect not.

That doesn’t mean anything goes.

Players’ and fans’ voices matter. And Pearce is right in that the people who run our sporting clubs serve the members, fans and players, and boards should listen.

But those same voices must also recognise that without sponsorship money through clubs and broadcasters, player wages won’t be as high, nor will the facilities they enjoy and expect, and the communities will not benefit to the extent they do today.

Leadership is rarely about choosing between right and wrong. More often it’s about choosing between two imperfect options and owning the call.

You weigh the benefits against the backlash. You weigh individual conviction against the collective good. And you try to be honest about both.

I guess that’s life really.