North Melbourne chief executive Eugene Arocca has warned that despite a record $1 million plus profit the AFL club will struggle in future without an improved stadium deal.

The Kangaroos have announced a $1,088,941 profit, an increase of more than $800,000 on last year, due largely to a huge jump in membership from 22,000 to more than 34,000.

But it also included $1.2 million for the `Roos to play three home games on the Gold Coast, a deal which will not continue next year, when they play all their home matches in Melbourne.

The club made only about $500,000 from eight home games in Melbourne this season and Arocca said it would be difficult to produce profits if that level of return continued.

"The elephant in the room for us is stadium deals ... until we get that part of it right our financial models are always going to be to a large degree heavily reliant upon membership," Arocca said.

He said the club believed they should make about $1.5 million in total from Melbourne home games, but needed the AFL to step in to broker a better deal for them with the operators of Telstra Dome and the MCG.

Currently, their average home crowd of 33,000 enables them to only break even at Telstra Dome, their main home ground, with almost all of their Melbourne gate revenue this year coming from three bigger-drawing games.

Arocca was optimistic the AFL would help them gain a better deal ahead of the 2010 season, if not earlier.

"This is the heartland of AFL football and for far too long four or five clubs have been the cash-cows for the stadium deals," he said.

"I think just from a moral point of view these members deserve better.

"I would think that the AFL is acutely aware of that."

While the grounds are operated by Melbourne Stadiums Limited (Telstra Dome) and the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCG) rather than the AFL, Arocca said the league had "leverage points" it could use to engineer better deals for the smaller-drawing clubs.

While the `Roos - who late last year declined a lucrative offer to relocate to the Gold Coast - wiped $1 million from their debt this year, Arocca said they were far from safe ground.

Their debt is still $3.2 million and they also have a shortfall of $2.5-3 million for the $16 million redevelopment of their Arden St training base, due to get underway in February.

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