Newcastle continues to pay a high price for its players' pre-season indiscretions in Bathurst with talks breaking down between the NRL club and a prospective major sponsor on Wednesday night.

Only four days out from the Knights' premiership opener against Melbourne, the club released a statement confirming it had re-entered the market for a major backer after negotiations stalled with global technology company Gizmondo.

"Of course it's a concern but it represents about five per cent of our turnover," chairman Michael Hill said.

"It's not the deathknell.

"We won't have something in place for the start of the season. We're back in the marketplace but we don't see it as a (long-term)problem."

But it is a significant blow to the club, which had hoped it could rescue its talks with Gizmondo.

Those dealings were on thin ice after the club's well-documented pre-season woes.

Newcastle was forced to take drastic action against its players following a drunken rampage through a university dormitory last month.

The club sacked young forward Dane Tilse and fined 12 players, including Tilse, for breaking team curfew and breaching the club's code of conduct.

The club wouldn't comment on Wednesday night on whether that pre-season incident had affected the talks.

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