The state was officially unveiled as the NBL's 10^th team on Thursday and will take part in the 2021-22 season with a revamped Derwent Entertainment Centre as its home base.

The NBL plans to run the side for at least its first season, but is willing to be flexible.

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"The way it will work in the initial stages is the NBL will be the owner of the licence and we will operate the team in the first instance," Kestelman said.

"Once the team is up and running over the next 12-24 months we will begin a search for the right long-term owner, but we want to make sure the team is set up the right way and functioning the right way and then we will look for the right owner.

"There's no particular set timeline or agenda - if the right owner comes out and approaches us in the meantime we'll have a conversation. We're not opposed to having a conversation but that's not our priority now, our priority now is building the team."

Tasmania has been absent from the country's top-flight basketball competition since the Hobart Devils wound up in 1996, while a Launceston NBL side lasted just three seasons in the early 1980s.

Kestelman said he believed the state's latest NBL project would fare much better than its predecessors.

"The league is in much, much better shape, it's a very different product to what it was in the past," Kestelman said.

"I think we have the support of the government and the community and it now has global exposure so it's a very different time and place than what it was in the past.

"The NBL is a really commercial business now and doing really well and growing, so we're very confident in the product."

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