Nick Knowles buys stake in Cornish Pirates
Television presenter Nick Knowles has bought a stake in Cornish Pirates, the club announced on 5 August 2026. He is best known for presenting DIY SOS and National Lottery: Who Dares Wins.
Pirates became the first English professional side to have American ownership when Pittsburgh-based Stonewood Capital Management took a stake in May, and the club has been seeking further investment since long-serving owner Sir Dicky Evans' near three-decade association ended in January 2025. Ownership is now a mix of United States-based investors and a group of shareholders based closer to home.
"He's Cornish by choice," Cornish Pirates chief executive Sally Pettipher told BBC Sport. "There's a spirit to the place that gets under your skin and he's been an ambassador for Cornish Pirates for over a season now already, he's in the crowd and people don't know.
"This investment, becoming a shareholder, is him putting some skin in the game and bringing with him his rugby heritage.
"He's got a rugby brain, he's got a rugby background, he's well connected in that world, he does an awful lot of philanthropy in that world and he brings visibility to us, which I think is really important.
"So the more eyes on we have, the more we can build our national and international audience.
"He is talented beyond what you see on screen and I'm very, very grateful for his input."
"That's an enabling investment to take us to the stage after this," added Pettipher. "So it's important, but it's not a lottery win, I would say. "We have a 10-year development plan. If I can make it faster I will, but the 10-year development plan is a series of investments that gets us to be a top of Premiership club. "That's a long way from where we are because we have to be ready, have to meet minimum standards, and we have to be a fantastic Championship club."
Pettipher set out financial and operational hurdles the club faces, saying: "There are many minimum standards that are required to become a Premiership club and one of those is a business plan that allows you to commercially exist. "There's a new minimum standard that's come in which is a salary floor, so not just a salary cap. So the business plan has to support a £5m budget for your rugby players alone. "People don't think about the fact that we only have 14 trading days a year, 14 home matches. "So actually, what we have to do as a business is create a business that is working 365 days a year and is generating the sort of income that can support a club with a business plan required by the Premiership. "The great thing about these new investors is they are very, very talented business people as well as rugby people. "So adding in business brains and planning brains and information networks and contact networks is a gift that they give and an investment that they're putting in alongside the financials."
Work on the new main grandstand at the Mennaye Field will not be ready in time for Cornish Pirates' pre-season game with Saracens on 28 August after being badly hit by Storm Goretti in early January, with part of the roof blown off and structural damage caused. The damage forced the club to play two league matches at nearby Camborne while repairs were made.
"The painful thing is that that stand is not going to be ready for us when we play Saracens at the end of this month," added Pettipher. "The grandstand will be a building site and unavailable, which is extremely upsetting to me because that is 600 premium seats that we are unable to use and that hits my bottom line quite substantially."
Pettipher said the club expects the grandstand to be completed in time for its first league match: "It should be ready for our first league match which is on 20 September."