NORTH Melbourne's commitment to play games in Hobart is not being driven by money but by the need to secure its long-term future via a vastly expanded supporter base, Kangaroos chairman James Brayshaw says.

Speaking ahead of North's first 'home' game at Blundstone Arena, against Greater Western Sydney on Sunday, Brayshaw said if the club was to escape its current off-field "challenges" it had to double its supporter base of 250,000-300,000 over the next 10-20 years.

And he said the club's three-year deal to play six games in "AFL-mad" Hobart offered it an invaluable opportunity to achieve some of that growth.

"One of the key planks for us is to grow our supporter base and engage more people and have more fans call North Melbourne their team," Brayshaw said.

"It is an enormous privilege to be able to take AFL football live into a city like Hobart where the game is already entrenched, [where] people already love it.

"Money is a very short term discussion to be honest, much more important for us as a club going forward is the fact that we need a lot more people than we have at the moment to support us as a footy club and become rusted-on North Melbourne people."

"The way forward for us over the next 10, 15, 20 years is to double our supporter base. If we don't do that we're always going to have the challenges we have now."

That said, North's deal to play in Hobart is a lucrative one, worth at least $500,000 a game. It looks even better when you consider North netted about $600,000 in 11 home games at Etihad Stadium last season.

Brayshaw acknowledged that for North to achieve its planned growth in Tasmania it would have to "spend a lot of time and energy" engaging with the locals, something it was committed to doing through clinics and a strong player presence.

"They love footy and we've got to make sure that they love us," he said.

Brayshaw said North's plans to play games in Ballarat did not undermine their commitment to Hobart, with the club able to play - and grow their support base - in both areas concurrently.

Similarly, he said any desire by Tasmanians to eventually have their own AFL team was not a "danger" to North's plans in the state, simply a matter Tasmania was "entitled" to discuss with the AFL.

Although Brayshaw stressed he had not been involved with North's past ventures playing 'home' games in Sydney (1999-2002), Canberra (1998-2006) and the Gold Coast (2007-08), he said Hobart would be a more receptive market.

"We've got a place that's already AFL mad. I've never seen a place that's more crazy about the game of AFL footy than Tasmania, [in the] north and south," he said.

This Sunday's game is almost a sell-out. North released an additional 1000 reserved seats on Tuesday but people are encouraged to pre-purchase tickets.

North will have an open training session at Blundstone Arena on Saturday from 12.30pm.

Nick Bowen covers North Melbourne news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter at @AFL_Nick