The Nemzeti Bajnokság I (English: National Championship I, commonly abbreviated NB I) is the premier men's professional handball league in Hungary, administered by the Hungarian Handball Federation. Since 2016 the official name of the championship is K&H Férfi Kézilabda Liga due to sponsorship reasons.
Overview
Running since 1951, the Hungarian championship is among the strongests in Europe. Veszprém KC have won the EHF Cup Winners' Cup in 2008 and have reached the semi-final of the EHF Champions League three times in the last nine seasons, capturing a silver medal in 2002. Main domestic rivals SC Pick Szeged are also regular members of the Champions League.
Currently, it consists of 14 teams. The top four teams after the regular season qualify for the playoffs, where a best-of-three system is used. Teams ranked fifth to ninth and tenth to twelfth decide their final places in a classification round, using a double round robin system, playing six additional rounds. Depending on their final position in the regular season, they are awarded bonus points which are added to the points they earn in the postseason.
According to the EHF league ranking, NB I champions and runners-up receive an automatic spot in the Group phase of the forthcoming Champions League season, while following two clubs enter the EHF Cup. Teams ranked thirteenth and fourteenth get relegated and will be replaced by the winners of the Eastern and Western group of the second division.
As we can see from the chart the number of teams in the Hungarian First Division changed a lot and continuously. The league started in 1951 with four teams and with the formation of teams the league expanded continuously. Currently, there are 14 teams in the first division.
Since 1951, clubs have participated in the Hungarian League. The club with the most appearances in the top league is PLER with 58. This record also includes participations of Elektromos SE and Malév SC Pestszenlőrinc, which merged to form PLER. The current NBI team with the most participations is Tatabánya with 54, as of the 2023-24 season. Ferencváros is the team that has participated the most seasons, 43, without ever winning the title.
The following data indicates Hungarian coefficient rankings between European handball leagues.
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
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