The Korfbal League has never been so popular
The new season starts on Friday at 20:30 with DVO - DOS '46, and interest in the Korfbal League has never been greater. That is shown by twenty years of figures on searching, reading, watching and the crowds in the hall.
Automatically translated from Dutch. Read the Dutch original.
- The 2025/26 season scored 116 on our index; the previous peak was 100.
- A PKC home match last season drew a median of 11,932 views, against 4,730 in 2013/14.
- The KNKV has 87,284 members, after years of decline.
For this piece, KORFBALINC put six sources side by side: search behaviour on Google, visits to Wikipedia, views of livestreams and highlights, the crowd per competition match and the viewing hours counted by the KNKV. Each source has been converted into an index, where 100 is the average of the past five seasons.
Highest level ever
The 2025/26 season comes out at 116. That is the highest figure since records began; the previous peak was 2018/19, with 100. Four of the five sources measured last season are above the 2021/22 level. Only visits to the Wikipedia page of the current season are not.
Belangstelling voor de Korfbal League per seizoen
- 2010/11: 29
- 2011/12: 41
- 2012/13: 42
- 2013/14: 41
- 2014/15: 61
- 2015/16: 77
- 2016/17: 84
- 2017/18: 96
- 2018/19: 100
- 2019/20: 91
- 2020/21: 79
- 2021/22: 85
- 2022/23: 97
- 2023/24: 98
- 2024/25: 108
- 2025/26: 116
Index: 100 is het gemiddelde van 2021/22 tot en met 2025/26. Bron: Google Trends, Wikipedia, Eyecons, YouTube, Mulier Instituut, KNKV.
In 2007/08 there were virtually no Google searches for the Korfbal League. Between 2010/11 and 2015/16 searches grew more than threefold, and last season was the season with the most search traffic ever.
Read more: Korfbal League schedule announced: champion DVO opens at home against DOS '46
From half-empty Ahoy to sold out
How different things were was described by Henry van Meerten, then director of the KNKV, in 2018. About the previous time the NOS broadcast the final live, he said: "That was about ten years ago for the last time and it resulted in a half-empty Ahoy". In 2011 there were around 10,000 people; in 2016 the final was played in front of 12,500 spectators in a sold-out Ziggo Dome.
Since the return to Ahoy in 2022, the final has been sold out every year, with around 11,000 spectators. The regular competition is also drawing bigger crowds: according to the Mulier Instituut, an average of around 731 per match in 2023/24, against around 606 in 2021/22.
From trial to every match live
In 2013/14 a trial started at three clubs, in 2018/19 eight of the ten clubs streamed on YouTube themselves, and since 2020/21 every match can be watched live on Eyecons. In 2023/24 the KNKV counted 263,363 viewing hours for the Korfbal League.
PKC broadcast throughout all those years. A home match drew a median of 4,730 views in 2013/14, 14,660 in 2017/18 and 11,932 last season. PKC's own record: a play-off match against Fortuna drew 53,000 viewers via the club's stream in 2018.
Weergaven per livestream van een thuiswedstrijd van PKC
- 2013/14: 4.730
- 2014/15: 6.467
- 2015/16: 9.058
- 2016/17: 11.836
- 2017/18: 14.660
- 2018/19: 14.487
- 2019/20: 14.443
- 2020/21: 16.409
- 2021/22: 9.400
- 2022/23: 7.823
- 2023/24: 9.573
- 2024/25: 13.856
- 2025/26: 11.932
Mediaan per seizoen. Tot en met 2019/20 YouTube, daarna Eyecons. Gemeten op 30 oktober 2026.
There is a kink in the line. The 2019/20 season was abandoned and the 2021 final was played in an empty Ahoy. After the switch from YouTube to Eyecons, the views per livestream roughly halved. For the same clubs combined they have grown every year since 2021/22; at PKC they go up and down.
Growth while korfball shrank
The Korfbal League also grew in the years when the sport shrank. The KNKV had 101,356 members in 2008 and around 79,000 in 2022. Since then membership has been growing again, to 87,284 in June 2026.
Searches for korfball in general are now around half of what they were around 2010/11. Of all searches for korfball, around 1 percent were about the Korfbal League back then, now more than 6 percent.
Not everything is growing along with it. The KNKV is no longer broadcasting highlights this season; last season the 100 highlights were viewed a combined 312,457 times. Anyone who wants to watch a match can turn to the livestreams on Eyecons.
The first chance is on Friday at 20:30, when champion DVO open the season against DOS '46.