A significant moment in North's history transpired on Wednesday when the club's membership tally ticked over 40,000 for the first time in its 145-year history. Just four seasons ago the Kangaroos' membership total was only 29,254. The remarkable growth is thanks to a lot of hard work by all involved at Arden Street according to CEO Carl Dilena.

"We've worked really hard on member retention and servicing over the years. We probably set the target about four years ago when we were in the 20's (thousand) and saw it as a real stretch target, so it's even more pleasing to get there," Dilena told SEN.

PRESS PLAY above to listen to the full Dilena interview.

"With the improvement in the side over the last 2-3 years that obviously helps, our expansion into the Hobart market as well helps with membership. There's probably a range of factors but there's been a huge amount of work put in by our membership and marketing team so it's a really great effort. It's a very pleasing result for the club, a great milestone for us."

Playing two 'home' matches over the past three seasons in Tasmania and developing strong relationships in the local community through The Huddle have helped increase North's supporter base.

"There's a range of things we've been doing which have really helped. If you can expand into a new market, like we've done with Hobart that helps in growing your supporter base.

"We've put a huge amount of work into the community and not just the traditional footy clinic style, real genuine engagement in the community that's given us a lot of support and additional backing with members as well."

With a little breathing room in North's salary cap, Dilena said it could be possible to securing another free agent depending on who is available.

"I think a minimum you need to get to is 95% (salary cap spend), so you need to be above that. The way we've been managing is by making sure we're right up there and maybe with a little bit of building capacity like we did last year so it gives you an opportunity around free agency, like last year with Nick Dal Santo and Robbie Nahas.

"You need to have some sort of capacity in your salary cap to do that sort of stuff and we're managing that very closely. We'd like to have a look around at the end of this year as well, you never know. You don't overcommit, but you make sure you're getting as close to 100% with your planning."

Dilena believes James Brayshaw's concept of shortening the AFL season to 20 home and away rounds would need to tick a few commercial boxes before it became a reality.  

"He (Brayshaw) raised it Friday night at the game with me out of the blue and we hadn't discussed it and when it got reported in the media I thought I better check what the details are. It's not a plan that we've worked together on, I think it's his particular views, I think everyone's throwing up ideas as to how you make it equitable or better on players.

"I suppose that was my gut reaction to it.not only the media stuff with the AFL, the essential revenue, club revenues would be affected as well; you've got gate receipts and your membership packages that you have to sell and the pricing would be different for those if you have fewer games. It's quite a wide ranging issue and a lot of variables yet to be taken into account."  

Another key topic on North's agenda is the prospect of a stand-alone VFL side which is within the long-term future plans at Arden Street.

"We've been very happy with the alignments we've got at the moment with North Ballarat and Werribee; they've been working really well. We come up to the end of the current deal at the end of this year and so as everyone would, we're looking through the options, having a chat to them about what works and what doesn't.

"We'll look at the different models, we haven't made any decision as yet, certainly nothing would happen next  year, it would be more longer term strategic planning; What does footy want to do? What are the benefits? What are the costs? It's a pretty expensive exercise to own your own VFL team so that's a big factor for us, we're just really in the preliminary thought processes on that."