They have won the equal second most premierships (four, along with Geelong and second to Hawthorn) of any club in that time and were the first non-Victorian team to compete in and win an AFL Grand Final, achieving the latter feat in 1992.

The West Coast Eagles were selected in 1986 as one of two expansion teams to enter the Victorian Football League (VFL) the following season, along with the Brisbane Bears.

[13] In 1992, West Coast finished fourth on the ladder, but again progressed to the grand final, defeating Geelong by 28 points to become the first team based outside Victoria to win a premiership.

[14] Having slipped to third in 1993, the club finished as minor premiers the following season, and went on to again defeat Geelong in the grand final to win its second premiership in three years.

[18] The 2000 and 2001 seasons were marked by a rapid decrease in form after the loss of several key senior players, culminating in a 14th-place in 2001, at the time the worst in the club's history.

[10] Ben Cousins was made sole captain of the club in 2002, having shared the role with Dean Kemp the previous season.

[9] During this time, the team was boosted by a number of high picks in the AFL draft gained as a result of the previous poor finishes.

For the second consecutive year, the Brownlow Medal was won by an Eagles player, with Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr finishing first and second, respectively.

During the past few seasons, the club had been impacted by a series of highly publicised off-field controversies involving allegations of recreational drug use, nightclub assaults, and links to outlawed motorcycle gangs.

Michael Gardiner was traded after crashing his car while drunk, and Ben Cousins resigned the captaincy of the club prior to the 2006 season after being charged with evading a police breath test, with Chris Judd taking over as captain.

[31] West Coast's strong form continued into 2012, losing the 2012 NAB Cup grand final to Adelaide and spending the early part of the season on top of the table.

[36] He was replaced by five acting co-captains for the remainder of the season – Shannon Hurn, Josh Kennedy, Eric Mackenzie, Matt Priddis, and Scott Selwood.

After losing the inaugural game at the new Optus Stadium against the Sydney Swans, West Coast went on to win 10 in a row to surge to top of the ladder, including defeating Hawthorn at Etihad and Richmond, the eventual minor premiers.

However, injuries to star forwards Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling saw them struggle, losing 3 games in a row including to Sydney for a second this time at the SCG.

The Eagles' form at the MCG had long been criticised, and round 17 against an in-form Collingwood who had won 7 of the previous matches was seen as a stern test.

The match was fairly close throughout, until the Eagles got on top in the last ten minutes of the third quarter to win by a commanding 35 points.

The Eagles finished the 2018 home and away season second on the ladder with 16 wins and 6 losses – their best result since 2006 – earning the right to host the second qualifying final against third-placed Collingwood at Optus Stadium.

In a match dubbed an all-time classic,[45] Collingwood led by as much as 29 points in the first quarter, but the resilient Eagles managed to claw their way back into the contest, and with just over 2 minutes left, a brilliant play set up by a Jeremy McGovern intercept mark and a further sensational mark by first year player Liam Ryan saw Dom Sheed score a goal from a tight angle to put the Eagles 4 points in front.

The reigning premiers recovered magnificently, winning 12 of their next fourteen matches, but missed out on a spot in the top four after an upset 38-point loss to Hawthorn in round 23.

West Coast struggled to find their best form throughout the year and ultimately missed the finals for the first time since 2014, finishing ninth on the ladder with 10 wins and 12 losses.

COVID and an extensive injury list saw many key players sidelined and West Coast's performance decline rapidly over the next two years.

On 9 July 2024, following no improvement in on-field performances despite the best player availability in three seasons, the club announced that Adam Simpson had been sacked as coach.

The club was originally owned and operated by Indian Pacific Limited, a publicly listed company that was delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange in 1990 after 75% of the shares were bought out by the WAFC.

Membership numbers were limited by the capacity of Subiaco Oval, which held 43,500 seats, with 39,000 reserved exclusively for club members.

[62][67] The club's away strip, which already used a variation of the design with the royal blue and gold colours swapped around, as updated to feature the new logo but otherwise remained relatively unchanged.

Between 2000 and 2015, the club's home jumper design featured a stylised eagle on a tricolour of navy blue, white and gold.

[70] Starting in 2010, the Eagles also wore a third, predominantly white guernsey in order to avoid visual clashes with teams who used similar colours.

[80] West Coast is also responsible for sponsoring FootyWILD, a program similar to Auskick held in KwaZulu-Natal, a province of South Africa.

[85] Ahead of the Eagles' appearance in the 2015 Grand Final, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra created an orchestral version of the song.

In 2023, the side suffered five losses of 100 points or more in the first 12 rounds of the season, with informal talks held about a possible forfeit of their game against Subiaco, although this did not happen.