Best bats back Tigers approach to take up Knights upgrade

Off-contract Bradman Best is staying loyal to the Newcastle Knights, with the young gun expected to knock back a big Wests Tigers bid in favour of a $2 million contract upgrade and a renewed effort to win a premiership with the Hunter club.

Benji Marshall pushed quite hard to bring Best to the club from the 2025 NRL season onward but the 22-year-old has decided to stay in blue and red through to 2027.

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The re-signing will make Best one of the highest-paid centres in the entire rugby league competition, with The Sporting Base hearing the Blues gamebreaker will now earn around $700,000 a season. That includes a little pay bump for 2024 before a bigger leap in 2025 through to 2027. All up it comes to around $2.1 million in the extension.

The Tigers were reportedly willing to pay Best as much as $800,000 a year to bring him south, but he turned down the higher-paid offer.

Best has been on the up-and-up for some time now and played a huge role in the Knights’ 10-match winning streak that carried them all the way into the second week of NRL finals. He scored 13 tries in 25 games across the entire campaign and debuted for the Blues in State of Origin in July. He scored twice in a 24-10 victory in the series’ third game, though it was a dead rubber considering Queensland had already won the first two outings.

The hot property c entre has been very vocal about wanting to stay in Newcastle long-term.

“I want to stay here,” Best said some weeks ago when preseason began. “The Tigers have shown some interest, they are keen, but I have to weigh everything up. If it all works out as we plan, I’ll be staying at the Knights. We’ll see what happens but I’m really settled here. I love the club and I love the culture we have built.

The re-signing star added: “The boys here are all so connected and we are a close bunch, so to walk away from that would be really hard. “The lifestyle here [in Newcastle] is second to none.”