Established in 1967, the club have played in various locations around Leicestershire before moving to their current purpose-built home venue, the Mattioli Arena, in 2016.

Riders also now have an extensive youth programme for boys and girls, a Women's team near the top of England Basketball's Division One, one of the country's largest Basketball Apprentice schemes at Charnwood College, and a partnership with Loughborough University, led by the Great Britain men's captain Drew Sullivan, and which includes a GB Futures player, Jamell Anderson, two Great Britain Under 20 men's internationals and two Great Britain Under 20 women's internationals, as well as a number of boys and girls in England Under age international teams.

The Jelson Homes DMU Leicester Riders secured the BBL Cup in thrilling fashion as they defeated the Newcastle Eagles 80–85 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham on 13 January 2012, in front of a bumper 7,500 crowd, and live on Sky TV, their first piece of silverware since they won the Cup and the Playoff finals in 2001.

[1] This marked the first European participation of a British team since Guildford Heat featured in the ULEB Cup in 2007.

In the first qualifying round, Leicester was eliminated by Danish side Bakken Bears, thus being demoted to the season's FIBA Europe Cup,[2] where they lost all six group stage games.