North, who play Hawthorn at Launceston on Sunday afternoon, will play two 'home' games a season at Bellerive Oval from 2012-14 in a deal that will reportedly net the club up to a $1 million a year.
Arocca said in securing the deal - which will bolstered by North's ability to sell advertising space at a 'clean' Bellerive Oval - North had achieved one of the key aims of its long-term strategic plan.
"We are starting a little way behind some of the other clubs and need to grow, so securing a secondary market for us is fantastic," Arocca said.
"We think that going to Hobart is probably the third-most significant milestone the club has reached under (chairman) James Brayshaw."
Brayshaw took over as North Melbourne chairman at the end of 2007 when the club voted not to move to the Gold Coast.
Arocca said Kangaroos' most significant achievements in the three and a half years since had been returning the club from a shareholder-controlled entity to a member-based one, and building its state-of-the-art administration and training headquarters at Aegis Park in North Melbourne.
But securing the Hobart deal was almost as important, Arocca said.
"The ability to tap into a 250,000-strong market that is AFL-starved to some degree represents an opportunity that is historic for the club and one that we'll embrace," he said.
Arocca told afl.com.au this week that within the next five years North hopes to match the 8000-plus Tasmanian supporters Hawthorn has attracted since it started playing home games at Launceston's Aurora Stadium in 2001.
In this regard, Arocca was buoyed by a recent survey in Hobart's daily newspaper, The Mercury, in which 68 per cent of respondents said they would attend a North game at Bellerive Oval next season.
But Arocca said as much as North was looking forward to bringing football to the people of Hobart, it recognised that to truly gain a foothold in southern Tasmania it had to immerse itself in the region over the long term.
"I can give our members and our supporters an absolute assurance that this is not a fly-in, fly-out (arrangement) for us … this is an absolute engagement," Arocca said.
Arocca acknowledges that some commentators have questioned North's commitment to Hobart given it has previously abandoned attempts to forge secondary markets in Sydney (where it played home games from 1999-2002), Canberra (1998-2006) and the Gold Coast (2007-08).
Having not been part of North's administration during those ventures, Arocca said it was hard for him to comment on what had driven the club into each market. But he said none of them had been "dyed-in-the-wool" football regions like Tasmania.
"Tasmania is a unique, fully fledged AFL zone. It is purely and simply a football hotbed of activity," Arocca said.
"The only thing they lack is content, in particularly in Hobart. And Hawthorn has shown in Launceston that playing down there is a model that is clearly workable.
"In the south of Tasmania, you have 250,000 dyed-in-the-wool AFL supporters, people who will go to the game no matter who's playing, as long as it's an AFL match. That is entirely different to the competition the club would have faced from other sporting codes in Canberra, Sydney and the Gold Coast.
"So in the past there were other factors that impacted on the club's success in those other regions. But we reckon that we have learnt a heck of a lot from those ventures and that, with the AFL's support, we can truly engage with Tasmania and Hobart in particular.
"Certainly, if this doesn't work we'll only have ourselves to blame."
But Arocca is confident North's venture into Hobart will work. He points to the fact that outside Victoria, Tasmania is home to the second-largest contingent of North members, just behind Western Australia.
Arocca said North's strong West Australian supporter base had been built on the procession of West Australians the club had recruited in the 1970s and 1980s, players such as Barry Cable, Ross Glendinning, Steve McCann and Phil and Jimmy Krakouer. But he said the chance to play regular live football as the 'home' team in Hobart would breed even more support for the club.
North was also partially aligned to Tasmania's former VFL team, the Devils, from 2006-07. That alignment ended a season before AFL Tasmania decided to withdraw the Devils from the VFL in favour of starting the current Tasmanian State League. But Arocca said the North players that had played for the Devils had enjoyed their time in Tasmania and were looking forward to renewing their involvement.
After North's Hobart deal was announced in June this year, Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett urged North to take its involvement in Tasmania seriously and to "put in the effort throughout the community in the same way Hawthorn does".
Arocca realises there is much work to be done before North embeds itself in Hobart, like the Hawks have done in Launceston.
Arocca acknowledged the "marvellous" community work the Hawks have done in Tasmania over the past 10 years and said North was similarly committed to engaging with southern Tasmania.
North prided itself on its recent record of community engagement in Melbourne and Ballarat, and would take the same approach in Tasmania, Arocca said.
"We always tell our players that our point of difference from some of the bigger clubs is what we give to the community, which we like to think is a bit unique," he said.
"So we're pleased that when (AFL chief executive) Andrew Demetriou spoke about us in relation to Hobart he talked about our community engagement being a key part of our existence.
"From that point of view, the Hawks have done a wonderful job in their area, but we would love, and expect, to match what they've done, if not increase what they've done, in our area."
Although North is still formulating the community engagement strategies it will implement in Tasmania, Arocca said they could include holding local community camps and training camps and, over the longer term, implementing the club's innovative Huddle program.
Since the start of 2010, the club has run the Huddle program from its Aegis Park headquarters, running a series of education and life-skills programs targeted to meet the needs of its multicultural local community, particularly the schoolchildren.
Despite North's commitment to a long-term presence in Hobart, Arocca again stressed suggestions the club's venture was a precursor to an eventual relocation were way off the mark.
"Everything we've done, everything we've worked towards in the last three years is everything we'd think would confirm in any person's mind that North Melbourne is staying in North Melbourne," he said.
"We've built a wonderful facility with the support of our stakeholders, and the AFL has made it very clear that it's happy with 10 teams in Victoria. We've got what we believe is an unbreakable commitment to the people of Victoria for this club to stay here."
Arocca said playing in Hobart was one part of the club's three-pronged growth strategy, in which North would also focus on growing its Melbourne supporter base - particularly in the rapidly growing western suburbs - and building a regional presence in Ballarat.
Although many Tasmanians have a strong desire to one day have their own AFL side, Arocca says until that happens the North Melbourne-Hobart relationship will have huge benefits for both parties. Over the course of that relationship, Arocca is also confident North can build a new supporter base that will endure long term.
"Even if in 15 or 20 years' time Tasmania gets its own team, we're going to be well placed to have a very strong membership core in Hobart," he said.
"Actually going and playing football as a home team in a new area that is desperate for live AFL action, you can't underestimate how doing that helps you connect with that community."
