NRL season 2015: Newcastle Knights streamline budget as club plans to return to community Newcastle Knights will eventually become a community owned club again. NEWCASTLE Knights have stripped close to $3 million from their operating budget for next season with the NRL agreeing to underwrite the club's financial position for the next three years as it transitions out of private ownership and back to a community owned club. The Knights newly appointed independent board, under the chairmanship of Hunter Valley vigneron Brian McGuigan, met for the first time on Monday and director and former ARL boss John Quayle said he is confident about the club's long-term financial viability post-Nathan Tinkler. Former ARL boss John Quayle will oversee the Knights" transition. "A strong competition with the Knights is just vital to the long-term future of the game and the good thing is what the league has acknowledged here - it is a community-based team," Quayle said. The first stage is getting the structure in place that makes sure the long term viability of the Knights is secure. You can't do that over one year. You have to take that over a period of time. If we get that right first up, the rest flows. (It needs) good governance, a good strategic plan long term because no longer can a team survive just year to year. The first thing is to get our spending in line with what we make. That will be the key. The good thing about this structure is the league own us. They can't own us long term but have made it quite clear they want us to take our time in getting the structure right. Wests Group CEO Phil Gardner, who is also on the Knights board, confirmed his organisation will have a role to play in a new ownership model down the track. "Long term, obviously the NRL aren't going to be the owners of this club," Gardner said. Somewhere, there will be a transition to a new ownership structure and somewhere in that Wests will certainly play a part. But anything we do we will need to go back to our members and talk to them about it and it will need to be in the best interests of the Knights, our members and the community. Originally published as Streamlined Knights go back to the people