“OUR Knights One Chance” organisers are poised to escalate their bid for community ownership of Newcastle’s rugby league franchise with a marketing and promotional blitz.
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Having launched their concept before Christmas, the Our Knights group always anticipated a hiatus in their sales pitch over the festive season.
But they are poised to resume their campaign in earnest with newspaper, radio and television advertising, kicking off early next month.
Former Knights chairman and foundation player Rob Tew, one of seven Our Knights “community facilitators”, said the initial response had been encouraging but it was time for some “saturation coverage” to spread the gospel.
“We’re in the throes of putting together a marketing blitz, starting in the first week of February, which we expect will run until the last week in March,’’ Tew said.
“We’re hoping over an eight- or nine-week period, we can build more interest and momentum. And in that same time frame, we’ll be looking to carry out an independent poll, in accordance with the NRL’s criteria.’’
Seven weeks after announcing their vision – which involves selling 40,000 shares at $500 apiece to raise $20 million and allow the Knights to be owned by the community – Tew remains confident those numbers were achievable.
“I think we’re probably at, or in front, or where we thought we’d be,’’ Tew said.
“But now that we’re through Christmas, we’ve got to get it back in the forefront of people’s minds.
“These next couple of months are going to be very important in generating interest and support.’’
Tew said Knights officials were “supportive” of the plan but had to remain at arm’s length, because the club is owned by the NRL.
The governing body, which unsuccessfully put the Knights out to tender late last year, is monitoring the community-ownership drive with interest.
The NRL had funded the embattled franchise since taking the licence from former owner Nathan Tinkler in June, 2014, after a tumultuous three-year tenure.
“They [the NRL] think it’s a steep hill for us to climb, given the volume of capital and number of participants that we need to attract,’’ Tew said.
“But at the end of the day, we believe those numbers exist here and we’ve not been discouraged by the NRL.’’
He said Our Knights were “very conscious” of not distracting fans from the season ahead, which kicks off with the Auckland Nines in two weeks.
