From today's Newcastle Herald:
Knights miss the jump on Christmas show of support
By Robert Dillon
COMING SOON: Jarrod Mullen and Kurt Gidley model the new Knights jerseys. — Picture by Dean Osland
THE Newcastle Knights have missed a golden opportunity to retail their new jumpers in the lead-up to Christmas, but chief executive Steve Burraston does not believe their tardiness will prove costly.
The Knights recently unveiled new home-and-away jerseys after becoming the first NRL club to link with sporting-apparel manufacturers KooGa.
KooGa initially planned to have their range of Knights merchandise in stores by December 15, in time for the Christmas spending spree.
But there is still no sign of the new-look kit, and leading sports retailers said they were uncertain when they would start stocking it.
Burraston admitted the club would have preferred to start selling the new jumpers before Christmas but said it was not necessarily the peak time for sales.
"I don't think it's an issue," he said.
"Obviously we do sell some leading up to Christmas as Christmas presents, and we have missed some of those sales, but it's really from about the end of January onwards that we sell a lot of our merchandising products.
"Our major sales come leading into the season, and if you win a few games early in the season, that helps as well.
"Yes, we might have missed a few sales over Christmas, but I'm hopeful we can pick those up.
"The most important thing for us was getting the product right, and we know we've got a very good product.
"It's better than any jumper we've put on the market before, and we think it's better than most jumpers on the market in 2008.
"We think people will be attracted to it. The new design is high-quality and high-tech, and it just is a quality product."
Burraston said sponsorship issues had caused the deferral of the new kit's release to the general public.
"They were to come out in mid-December, but we got held up for a while signing off sponsors, to get the right logos printed on the jumpers," Burraston said. "That delayed us a little while."
Asked what share of profits the Knights received from merchandising, Burraston said the NRL used a rebate system that was "a little bit complicated".
"Half of what the NRL sells under licence goes back to the club, based on the merchandising you sell," he said.
"So if you have 40 per cent of the merchandise sales, you get 40 per cent of the rebate.
"And then the other half gets split equally amongst the other clubs."
Meanwhile, Burraston was confident the Knights were on the verge of signing a new 12-year lease at EnergyAustralia Stadium.
Their current arrangement ends on January 8, and if they were unable to broker a deal with the International Sports Centre Trust and the Wests Group, the stadium licence would go out to tender.
"The first draft came back last week, and there were a couple of amendments we're looking to make," he said.
"Assuming they're made, we should get that signed off before January 8."
