Founded in 2017 by eight-division boxing world champion Manny Pacquiao, the MPBL is not intended to be a competitor to the top-flight Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), but rather to provide a gateway for local, homegrown talents to showcase their skills.

[1] The MPBL started an amateur league before being granted professional status by the Games and Amusements Board.

[4][5] The Pampanga Giant Lanterns are the current defending champions, beating the Quezon Huskers in three games during the 2024 MPBL finals.

The MPBL began its inaugural season on January 25, 2018, at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.

[13] The playoffs only had eight teams due to the small size, concluding with the Batangas City Athletics winning the inaugural title in the 2018 finals against the Muntinlupa Cagers.

This season also saw the inaugural edition of the MPBL All-Star Game, which was held at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.

The San Juan Knights would win the title that season against the Davao Occidental Tigers in the 2019 national finals, which is to date, the only series to go the full length of five games.

[18] In December 2019, Chooks-to-Go of Bounty Agro Ventures became the title sponsor of the league under what was initially a five-year deal.

[19] This season also saw the debut of the International Invasion series, which saw games being played in the United Arab Emirates and in Canada.

A month later, on December 9, 2021, the MPBL was granted professional status by the Games and Amusements Board (GAB).

The season marked a new sponsorship with sports betting platform OKBet, succeeding Chooks-to-Go as the title sponsor.

[25] The Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards became the first team to achieve a regular season sweep and subsequently won the 2022 national finals against the Zamboanga Family's Brand Sardines.

[26] The season culminated with the homegrown-laden Pampanga Giant Lanterns sweeping the Bacoor City Strikers in the 2023 national finals.

This first occurred in FilBasket during the Subic 2021 and Summer 2022 championships, which saw multiple teams participate due to the long gap between the 2019–20 and 2022 seasons.

[27][28] In recent years, teams that were eliminated for the season would compete in the Pilipinas Super League (PSL) during the offseason.

[29] It is also around this time where multiple PBA prospects, such as Justine Baltazar, CJ Cansino, and Adrian Nocum, began playing in the MPBL before declaring for the draft.

[34] However, this was later refuted by EASL CEO Henry Kerins in October that year, stating that "there were no exploratory talks" while also sharing his respect for the league.

[35] The season culminated with the first back-to-back championship after Pampanga defeated the Quezon Huskers in three games in the 2024 MPBL finals.

In the same press conference, Pacquiao also shared intent to create a volleyball counterpart similar to the MPBL that will cater to female players.

UST Growling Tigers coach Haydee Ong was set to be the first commissioner of the women's league.

The only regions that haven't had a representing team at any point are Cagayan Valley (until 2025), Eastern Visayas, Northern Mindanao, and Caraga.

[33] The league schedules a window during the middle of the season where teams can propose trades, all to be approved by the commissioner's office.

The league uses the number of wins as its first metric for determining rankings and any ties are broken using the quotient system.

Beginning with the 2025 season, the league announced a play-in tournament to be contested by teams ranked seventh through tenth in their respective divisions.

The ninth and tenth-placed teams play to face the winner of the seventh place game for the last seed.

Intended to maintain parity and to keep in line with the league's grassroots foundations, the rule became controversial among fans, coaches, and players, particularly, Filipino-foreigners who have played in the PBA such as Rob Reyes and Abu Tratter.

But intentionally hurting someone, action should be taken by the officials to be fair to every team, so that that kind of incident does not happen again.”[54] In 2024, Manila player Greg Slaughter described the league's physicality as "fouling that isn't called" in an interview with SPIN.ph's Homer D.

[60] The league has told team owners to exclude any players and coaches who are suspected to be involved in this issue.