In September 2007, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the establishment of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a Twenty20 competition with the inaugural season planned for 2008.

Then captain of the Indian team MS Dhoni was bought by the Super Kings for $1.5 million, the most expensive buy at the auction.

[3] The franchise also bought international cricketers Suresh Raina, Matthew Hayden, Jacob Oram, Stephen Fleming, Muttiah Muralitharan and Michael Hussey in the inaugural auction.

[4] Ahead of the inaugural season, the franchise named Dhoni as the captain of the team and appointed Kepler Wessels as the head coach.

[9] In the final at Mumbai, Rajasthan Royals won the match off the last ball to defeat the Super Kings and lifted the first IPL title.

[12] At the player auction, the franchise bought English all-rounder Andrew Flintoff for $1.55 million, making him the joint highest-paid cricketer in the IPL.

[27] Murali Vijay, who won the Man of the Match in the final, was awarded the Golden Bat for scoring the most runs in the tournament, and Ravichandran Ashwin, who was the leading wicket-taker, was adjudged the Player of the Series.

[37] Ahead of the 2012 IPL season, the franchise bought Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja for $2 million at the players' auction.

[53][54] In May 2013, Gurunath Meiyappan, who was the team principal of the Super Kings, was arrested by Mumbai Police on charges of placing bets on IPL matches.

[57] Before the 2014 season, the Super Kings retained Dhoni, Raina, Jadeja, Ashwin and Bravo ahead of the players' auction.

[58] At the auction, the franchise bought Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith, Faf du Plessis, Ashish Nehra and Mohit Sharma among others.

[66] At the final in Bangalore, the Super Kings defeated then IPL champions Kolkata Knight Riders by eight wickets to win their second CLT20 title.

[68][69] Ahead of the 2015 season, the Super Kings got Hussey back and also bought Kyle Abbott, Irfan Pathan and Andrew Tye among others in the players' auction.

[74] On 14 July 2015, the Supreme Court appointed committee headed by RM Lodha, suspended the Rajasthan Royals and the Chennai Super Kings franchises from the IPL for a period of two years due to the association of their owners with illegal betting.

It also added international cricketers Imran Tahir, Lungi Ngidi, Mark Wood, Mitchell Santner, Sam Billings along with Indians Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur amongst others.

[77] Ahead of the team's return to the IPL after two seasons, anticipating fans turned up for the practice sessions held at the M. A. Chidambaram stadium in Chennai before the start of the tournament.

[51][87] Before the 2020 season, the Super Kings bought Sam Curran, Josh Hazlewood and Piyush Chawla at the player auction.

[91] Many members of the Super Kings' team tested positive for the coronavirus, and players such as Raina and Harbhajan Singh pulled out of the tournament citing personal reasons.

[96] In the 2021 player auction, the Super Kings bought Cheteshwar Pujara, Krishnappa Gowtham and Moeen Ali and traded in Robin Uthappa from the Rajasthan Royals.

[104] The Super Kings finished ninth out of the ten teams in the group stage and failed to qualify for the playoffs for only the second time in their IPL history.

[83][105][106] In the player auction before the start of the 2023 IPL season, the Super Kings bought Ben Stokes, Kyle Jamieson and Ajinkya Rahane.

[113] In the final in Ahmedabad, the Super Kings beat defending champions Gujarat Titans by five wickets to win a record equaling fifth title.

[83][114][115] In the player auction before the 2024 season, the Super Kings bought back Thakur and added Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Mustafizur Rahman and Rachin Ravindra to the squad.

The team bought back Ravindra, Mukesh Choudhary, Devon Conway, Sam Curran, and Shaik Rasheed, who had also played for the franchise in the previous seasons.

[147] In 2022, tyre maker TVS Eurogrip signed up with the franchise as the principal shirt sponsor on a three-year deal worth over ₹1 billion (US$12 million).

[152][153] The team also has sponsorship deals with India Cements, Gulf Oil, SNJ Breweries, Reliance Jio, Astral Pipes, ICICI Bank, Coca-Cola and Vision11.

When the IPL was launched in 2008, the Chennai franchise was sold to the India Cements for $91 million, making it the fourth most expensive team in the league.

[171] N. Srinivasan, who was then the treasurer and vice-chairman of the BCCI, became the de facto owner of the Super Kings as the managing director of India Cements.

[175][176] In a subsequent decision announced on 22 January 2015, the Supreme Court stuck down the 2008 amendment to the BCCI constitution that allowed board officials to have a commercial interest in the IPL.

[185] In the 2024 Tamil-language film The Greatest of All Time, archived footage featuring Dhoni for the Super Kings in an IPL match was used.