The Newcastle Knights are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. They compete in Australasia’s premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. Playing in red and blue, the Knights joined the top tier competition in 1988, 79 years after the previous Newcastle based team, the Newcastle Rebels had departed the Sydney competition with the formation of a separate league competition based in the Newcastle region.
The club has won two premierships over its history (1997 and 2001) and produced such players as Andrew Johns. Their home ground is Ausgrid Stadium.
In March 2011 Tinkler Sports Group (now Hunter Sports Group) successfully took ownership of the Newcastle Knights rugby league club by a landslide vote, voted on by the eligible members of the Knights. In a major coup for the club Tinkler Sports Group signed Wayne Bennett to a four-year coaching contract starting in 2012.
