A Queenstown team has been granted entry into the National Basketball League in 2024.
The team, which does not yet have a name, will join fellow expansion club Bay of Plenty Stingrays to create a 12-team league.
Spokesman Karl Budge remained tight-lipped about who was behind the team, but said an announcement was not far away.
"We’re really excited," Mr Budge said yesterday.
"We think there’s a great opportunity to deliver basketball in Queenstown and have a professional sports franchise based down there that can really be integrated into the community."
"Because it happened very quickly, we’re still working through [establishing] that entity at the moment, but we won’t be a million miles away from that.
"[We] are working through that with New Zealand basketball at the moment."
Mr Budge, the former director of the ASB Classic tennis tournament, said there were people in the Queenstown basketball consortium who were experienced sports administrators and had franchise experience in both basketball and other sports.
He said the consortium viewed the team as a long-term venture and would look to recruit players locally where they could.
Queenstown Lakes Mayor Jim Boult said it was an "incredible" opportunity.
"Given the growth of our population, our ability to be incredible hosts and growth in the popularity of basketball here, we see this as an exciting opportunity for our athletic community and for the national league to mutually benefit from a great partnership," Mr Boult said.
Mr Budge said the next steps were to continue to work with the council on a venue that would meet the team’s needs, employ staff to establish the franchise, finalise the consortium and announce the team’s name and logo.
It will mean the NBL has three men’s teams - Queenstown joining the Otago Nuggets and Southland Sharks - in the southern region.
The resort’s ice hockey team, the Stampede, has been competing in the New Zealand Ice Hockey League since 2005, winning six championships.
