The first commission/CEO's had a big emphasis on it, they brought it all in house and managed the marketing and sales of membership from NRLHQ with a goal of making the game more popular to attend and imrpoving club generated revenue.
This commission/CEO have less priority of it and seem to have decided that they will put the focus on making as much money as possible at NRLHQ and dishing it out to the clubs so they dont need to focus on fanbase generated revenue as much. If thats covid that changed their thinking, if its NRL way of controlling the clubs more, or just a strategic shift from different leaders is hard to say
The shift happened pre-COVID. From 2007 - 2016, the NRL had invested significantly in trying to replicate the AFL membership model of having all clubs use the one system and introducing centralised services to help push memberships. Pretty much all clubs signed up for this except for the Rabbitohs, Storm, Panthers and Knights.
The centralised services were far from perfect, but it was working, especially for the clubs who didn't have the budgets to invest in their membership programs (which were the likes of Manly, Sharks, Raiders, Roosters).
Then in late 2016, the clubs pushed for a new funding model for the 2018 season. John Grant agreed to the 130% of the salary cap request from the clubs to save his own skin in a marathon meeting that took place on December 20. To fund giving the clubs more money, the decision was made to dismantle the centralised services over the following seasons, with it all wrapped up by end of 2018. This included the membership and marketing programs, as well as some of the development programs, with the clubs expected to pick up this responsibility.