Global Sports Fund Management Group<\/a>, which has also acquired a Canadian basketball franchise, Ottawa Blackjacks, and Sunshine Coast Lightning Super Netball team.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s about investing into teams that are a buy-low, sell-high type scenario, as in all business,\u201d Pascoe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really keen to continue to invest in, not only Newcastle, but into sport globally, and we think Newcastle, regardless of what\u2019s happened previously, was untapped, and an opportunity that was waiting if we could get half-right.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other owners are all in alignment with the strategy, and the exec team have done a really good job to date, but we\u2019re also learning every day. There\u2019s things that we can improve on, and we\u2019ve just got to stay true to that path, and hopefully success comes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hagipantelis said the ultimate goal was not just on-field success, but to ensure the club becomes financially self-sustainable. No small task, given that since the A-League kicked off in 2005-06, the Jets have never broken even in any season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no reason why a sporting organisation such as the Jets cannot be economically viable,\u201d Hagipantelis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean it\u2019s a huge market up there. As long as you provide the product, people will come out and support it.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, if we increase crowd numbers from an average of 5000 to 15,000, you can imagine what that would do for the club\u2019s financial position.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s enormous opportunity for us to develop, but it\u2019s all going to come back to performance on the field \u2026 we\u2019re seeing very positive signs, so there\u2019s no reason why, being as vigilant and as strategic as we have been, we can\u2019t turn that club around within a season or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
The Jets had long been considered a basket case before this season\u2019s revival. Likewise the Tigers, who collected two of three consecutive wooden spoons with Hagipantelis and Pascoe at the helm, have been dysfunctional on the field and off it, as evidenced by the recent boardroom shambles that resulted in chief executive Shane Richardson resigning.<\/p>\n
\u201cLee and I are loving what we\u2019re doing, not only with the Jets, but with the professional basketball team that we have in Canada, and also obviously the Lightning up here on the Sunshine Coast,\u201d Pascoe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suppose the difference is that we actually can take ownership of decisions and set the strategy and be in alignment to actually execute that strategy, whereas, at the West Tigers, that wasn\u2019t always the case, with a board that was sometimes not in the same alignment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hagipantelis said nobody will be cheering louder than he will if coach Benji Marshall can steer the Tigers into the play-offs for the first time since 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a massive supporter of the West Tigers and I always will be, and I wish Benji and the team incredible success,\u201d he said. \u201cThe issues that I had with the West Tigers were with certain individuals, some of whom have already moved on, but not with the club itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jets not only won the Australia Cup for the first time in the pre-season, they are now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-443703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Jets](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/27ab9e2c161d6b5f8214a80771bd34f5c3bdd000.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/daed35decae3a0bfe458b3ed0357dbda10d47dd7.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n