‘The HPI makes the game better, more transparent and more complex,’ says HBL Managing Director Frank Bohmann, convinced of the benefits of the Handball Performance Index. ‘The handball players' performances, which fans follow on the pitch and on digital platforms, become comprehensible and tangible.’

The HPI was launched for the 2020/21 season by Handball-Bundesliga GmbH in cooperation with Deutsche Kreditbank AG (DKB) with precisely this aim in mind. A prominent task force with representatives from professional handball, the media and academia spent months developing the index. Since then, the HPI Task Force has been working continuously on its further development in regular face-to-face and online meetings.

All statistics collected during HBL matches are used as the basis for evaluating the players' performance. These include goals, assists, saves and technical errors. These are supplemented by tracking data from the data service provider KINEXON, which records all of the players' positional data and thus contributes, for example, to the identification of a fatal misplaced pass that leads directly to a goal conceded or a goal scored by the player himself.

The HPI is an integral part of the HBL's digitalisation strategy and has become an integral part of many (communication) fields relating to the ‘strongest league in the world’: the HPI not only forms the basis for the selection of the ‘DKB Player of the Month’ and the ‘DKB MVP of the Season’, but in START7, the DAIKIN HBL's handball management game, the players' points are also awarded on the basis of the HPI points. The index is also becoming increasingly relevant for clubs when assessing the performance of individual players.

In modern handball, every player has to fulfil different requirements: Depending on the position, the conditions and circumstances under which a player has to perform can differ significantly. For example, a winger can generally have less possession and therefore fewer assists than a team-mate from the backcourt. A centre-half, on the other hand, is more likely to score if he has a free shot on goal