THE Newcastle Knights believe they will have the facilities and financial capacity to match any rivals in the NRL, but chief executive Phil Gardner has no desire to be known as a "silvertail" club.
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"If I said we were going to be the silvertails, they would take me out into the streets and flog me," Gardner said with a laugh on Wednesday, at the official sod-turning ceremony for his club's new $20 million Centre of Excellence at Broadmeadow, which is expected to be built by next year.
The state-of-the-art complex, jointly funded by the Knights and the NSW Government, will be a luxurious upgrade from the days when shipping containers and Portaloos at University's No.3 oval were among the archaic amenities used by Newcastle's elite-level footballers.
Since the embattled franchise was taken over by the Wests Group in November, 2017, it has entered a new era of financial security, which will soon be highlighted when the profit for season 2018 is announced.
Gardner said he would be unable to disclose the size of the surplus until the NRL had completed an audit of all clubs.
But the Newcastle Herald understands it is in the region of $1 million.
"All I can say is your rumours are normally very close to being accurate … somewhere around that figure I think would be a great outcome," he said.
A profitable season would represent a remarkable turnaround, given that Gardner estimates the Knights lost $50 million over the previous decade.
He said it would show "the Knights can stand on our own two feet", after decades as the competition's poor relations.
Asked if the Knights aspired to eventually rank alongside cashed-up clubs like Brisbane, Sydney Roosters and Penrith, Gardner replied: "Well, the [Wests] group is probably financially better off than all of them anyway.
"Certainly we want the Knights to be as successful as they can be, but it's not all about money.
"The measure of success is not to have the highest profit in the game.
"There are many other measures of success that are more important.
"So we'll never be the silvertails. We'll always be what we are.
"We'll always be proud of our working-class, traditional roots, and we have to revel in that.
"Our goal is to be the toughest, not the richest."
The Centre of Excellence, to be built on the former cricket fields opposite McDonald's at District Park, was a key factor in Wests agreeing to take over the Knights, who spent three years under the interim control of the NRL after controversial former owner Nathan Tinkler's demise in 2014.
Wests had repeatedly resisted NRL overtures to pay a multi-million dollar "franchise fee" for the Knights.
But when they were offered a chance to invest in what Gardner described as "a legacy project", matched dollar for dollar by the state government, it was a deal clincher.
"I don't think we would have got the deal we got from the NRL without the Centre of Excellence support," Gardner said.
"To the NRL's credit, they put the good of the game before dollars and cents.
"By agreeing to the Centre of Excellence, we gave the NRL the confidence that we were going to turn this into a franchise that they could be proud of, and the region could be proud of.
"If we just came in as another Tinkler, that wasn't something anyone wanted.
"They gave us a great deal to take over the club, on the basis that we were good people who would live up to our word.
"Today what you're seeing is us living up to our word. We'll be investing at least $10 million, and it will probably cost us more than that."
Gardner was hopeful the Centre of Excellence would be the launchpad for the transformation of District Park into a sporting precinct.