2016 was the ninth competitive season for the Cairns based Sea Swift Northern Pride Rugby League Football Club.

[2] The new captain was Ryan Ghietti, who had represented Italy at the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, had played 96 QCup games, and had joined the Pride from Redcliffe Dolphins in 2011.

At the start of the season there was talk of offering a contract to Shaun Nona, the Tully player who made 25 appearances for the Pride in 2014 before heading to the Melbourne Storm.

[4] Mackenroth restructured the club's corporate governance and changed the Pride from an incorporated association to a company limited by guarantee, which was one of the requirements of the NRL's elite pathways.

The introduction of the Townsville Blackhawks into the competition last year led some Board members to suggest the Pride should be rebranded to reflect the Cairns and Far North Queensland region.

In order to try and boost crowd numbers, home games were moved from Saturday evenings, to 3:00pm Sunday afternoons, in what the CEO thought was a more family friendly time slot.

Ten new players made their debut this season; eight were new signings (Akeripa Tia-Kilifi, Ben Reuter, Brayden Torpy, Khan Ahwang and Rajan Opetaia-Halls, with Colin Wilkie, Fred Koraba and Greg Miglio signed to the Club via the Pride's CDRL Portability Program), and two were new Cowboys allocation players (Coen Hess* and Shaun Hudson*).

In August 2012 as part of the historic $1 billion five-year broadcasting agreement with Nine and Fox Sports, the Australian Rugby League Commission confirmed that Intrust Super Cup matches would be televised by Channel 9 until 2018.

In 2016 the Pride appeared in two televised games: Former Top-Flight Competition: Brisbane Rugby League premiership 16°55′49″S 145°46′2″E / 16.93028°S 145.76722°E / -16.93028; 145.76722 (Barlow Park)