Eight men’s and five women’s teams will fight it out in the tournament, starting with round 1 on October 14-15 in the North-West region.

Chief executive Chris McCoy said the series was outside of the SEABL season to maximise the availability of Tasmanian-born players. 

He said reigning women’s premier Hobart Phoenix would again be hard to topple having performed strongly in the past three years.

They will be joined by the Penguin Blues (2014 premiers), Kingborough-Huon, Launceston Japara and BTAS High Performance.

“The young high performance girls will always provide a highly entertaining affair with their speed and structure,” McCoy said.

“The new format of three or four games over a weekend may work in their favour.

“Debutants Kingborough-Huon and Launceston Japara will be interesting as we won’t know how high they can go until we see them in action. These teams feature some exciting signings which we will announce as we get closer.” 

McCoy said the men’s competition will be centred around the ever-consistent Hobart Phoenix, who took out last year’s title after challenging in both 2014 and 2015.

“BTAS High Performance, Kingborough-Huon and Hobart Moonah all return again this year and are very solid performers,” he said. 

“The Penguin Blues and Somerset Heat men enter for the first time and we are excited to see how these teams fare – Penguin should be rated very highly after winning the NWBU this year.

“A new-look Launceston Lightning will be young and looking to play a fast transition style, whilst Clarence United are full of intrigue with three Hobart clubs joining the Eastern Shore to form the association.

“One of these clubs being the Grenadiers, who have been excellent performers in State League.”

Opening round fixtures will take place at Burnie, Pengiun and Somerset basketball stadiums. Round 2 will be played in Hobart on November 4-5 with finals to be staged in Launceston on November 18-19.