that's nice. but who pays the coaches, fitness staff, medical staff, medical bills, rent, electricity, staff wages, uniforms, transport, gym equipment, rehab, physios, trainers, corporate entertainment, etc etc etc etc etc.
in 2009 the Broncos had football related expenses of $10.8M when the salary cap was $4.1M. so even if those extra costs haven't grown, a cap of $6.3M is going to kick that to close to 13 this year and my guess would be it will be out around $15 - 17M. There's $8 - 10M in football only expense that the NRL will not cover.
the Broncos had another $13M in expenses on top of the football expenses, in admin, stadium, tickets and marketing.
it would appear to be serious you need to spend double or a bit more of the salary cap on football expenses to be in the hunt. so if a team can earn itself the salary cap through members and game day they will just about cover their football expenses with that and the NRL grant. then you need to find money for the other things above.
collingwood have a similar ratio. they get about 11 from the AFL and spend another 11 on top of that on footy related expenses. they get 16M from members and 4 from match takings.
corp won't cover all of that so members with seats and other bums on seats are vital.