DBL (Netherlands) 2025/26

The DBL stands as the long-standing top-tier men's professional basketball league in the Netherlands. Originally established in 1960 under the name Eredivisie, the competition operated under that banner for five decades before undergoing a rebranding in 2010 to become the Dutch Basketball League. Organized by the Nederlandse Basketball Bond (NBB), the league has always occupied the summit of the domestic basketball pyramid.

For many years, the DBL was a strictly closed system, operating without promotion or relegation. Its traditional format relied on a quadruple round-robin regular season, ensuring every team played each other four times. This structure led into a playoff series designed to crown a national champion. The quarter-finals were decided in best-of-3 series, while the semi-finals and finals required best-of-5 and best-of-7 formats respectively. Heroes Den Bosch remains the most successful club in this era, holding a record eighteen national titles.

In 2021, the landscape shifted significantly with the merger of the DBL and the Belgian Pro Basketball League to form the BNXT League. This cross-border entity sits at Tier 1 for both nations. The current structure features a single round-robin regular season for all participating teams, followed by separate national playoffs to determine the Dutch and Belgian champions individually. Since the 2024–25 season, a notable change has been introduced: the overall BNXT title is awarded to the team finishing first in the regular season standings.

The league currently includes clubs such as Yoast Utd, Zwolle, Feyenoord, The Hague Royals, Almere, and BAL Weert. While the DBL name persists in history, the modern iteration continues to serve as the premier professional basketball competition for Dutch teams, operating alongside its Belgian counterparts within the new unified framework.