Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League

In the first months, the league hosted teams from Luzon with future plans to expand to accommodate teams based in Visayas and Mindanao like the defunct Metropolitan Basketball Association. It is planned that an expanded MPBL will have two conferences, North and South, where the best teams from both divisions will face in the finals similar to the format of the National Basketball Association of the United States.[3]

The league was planned to start as early as September 23, 2017 with at least six teams.[5] A pre-season was held with the Bulacan Kuyas finishing as champions.[6]

The MPBL began its first season (named the Anta Rajah Cup) on January 25, 2018, and included ten teams, all based in Luzon.[7] In the opening game at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, the Parañaque Patriots secured a 70–60 victory over the Caloocan Supremos.[8] The Batangas City Athletics were crowned as the league's first-ever champion when they defeated the Muntinlupa Cagers in the 2018 MPBL Finals.

For the 2018–19 season, the MPBL had expanded its roster of teams to 26, adding 16 expansion teams to the league. After ten expansion teams from Luzon were admitted into the league, it closed its doors so that it could leave room for future Visayas and Mindanao teams. The Davao Occidental Tigers became the first MPBL team from the Visayas-Mindanao region.[9] This drastic increase led to the addition of the aforementioned Northern and Southern Divisions. The league also placed roster limitations on teams, only allowing one Filipino-foreigner and up to five ex-professional players.[10] The San Juan Knights then became the 2019 champions, beating the Davao Occidental Tigers.

The 2019–20 season featured a record-high 31 teams participating in the league, adding six expansion teams. Adjustments on roster limitations were brought to allow more Filipino-foreigners and ex-professional players to play in the league.[11] In December 2019, Chooks-to-Go of Bounty Agro Ventures became the title sponsor of the league under a five-year deal.[12] The season was postponed on March 12, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after the second game of the Divisional Finals. Nearly one year later, the league resumed play for the final games of the playoffs on March 10, 2021 through a bubble in Subic.[13] The Davao Occidental Tigers beat the San Juan Knights in a rematch of last season's Finals to become the 2020 champions. Because of the long delay, the 2020–21 season was cancelled altogether.[14] In October 2021, Chooks-to-Go took over the operations of the league.[12]

On November 9, 2021, it was announced that the MPBL will turn into a professional league. They have also lifted the restrictions for Fil-foreign and ex-professional players.[15] On December 9, 2021, the MPBL was granted professional status by the Games and Amusements Board.[4] The league also signed a partnership with sports betting platform OKBet to server as their title sponsor.[16]

The league held its first preseason tournament, the 2021 Invitational, with the Basilan Jumbo Plastic becoming the tournament's champions, also winning a prize pot of two million pesos. This is followed by the 2022 season, which featured 22 teams competing. On October 10, 2022, Kyt Jimenez of the Sarangani Marlins became the first player in league history to record a quadruple-double.[17] The Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards went undefeated in the regular season and subsequently became the 2022 champions, winning against the Zamboanga Family's Brand Sardines.

The 2023 season features 30 teams, including two expansion teams.[18] The 2023 Preseason Invitational was held in General Santos featuring eight teams, among those teams is the first guest team in the league, Bulalakaw.[19] The Zamboanga Family's Brand Sardines won the preseason tournament, beating the Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards.

There is no draft held during the off-season, instead, teams acquire their players through the signing of contracts. There are requirements that each team's roster must follow:

• All local players are eligible to play in the league – naturally-born Filipino citizens.
• Each team must have at least three homegrown players on the roster – local players who are native to their team's home locality.[20]
• Each team is limited to two Filipino-foreigners, but only one can play at a time – Filipinos of foreign descent regardless of where they are born or raised, or if they are a holder of a Philippine passport. A height limit of 6'5" (1.95 m) is imposed.[21][11]
• Each team is limited to seven ex-professional players, but only five can play at a time – players with prior participation in other professional leagues, such as the PBA and ABL.[22][11]

All requirements were scrapped during the 2021 MPBL Invitational.[23][15]

The league uses the standard FIBA rules for all of its games.

Before the regular season begins, an invitational tournament is held as part of the pre-season. In the group stage, the participating teams are divided into multiple groups, where each team will play against their group opponents once. The top two teams of each group advance to a single-elimination playoff tournament, with cash prizes awaiting the top teams.

The regular season uses a single-round robin format, much like the PBA, where each team plays against all of the other teams once. In each gameday, a series of games is played in a team's homecourt, but not all games feature the host team, making them neutral-site games. Gamedays usually end with the host team participating in the final game.

In each division, the top eight teams by winning percentage advance to the playoffs and are seeded into a single-elimination bracket. The first three rounds (First Round, Divisional Semifinals, and Divisional Finals) are played in a best-of-three series, while the National Finals is played in a best-of-five series.

Notes

On January 11, 2018, it was announced that ABS-CBN and its sports division would be the first television broadcasters in the league.[38] These games were broadcast through S+A, Liga, and its various ABS-CBN Regional Network Group in the Philippines, while The Filipino Channel broadcast the games in international markets. Some Finals games would also be aired through the main ABS-CBN channel. In addition, Fox Sports Asia also held the broadcast rights for Monday games until the 2018–19 season. The broadcast rights were left in jeopardy when ABS-CBN's franchise was expired on May 4, 2020, which led to the dissolution of its sports division on August 31, 2020. Despite that, the network continued to broadcast games through A2Z when the 2020 playoffs resumed.

For the 2021 Invitational, the league then found new broadcast partners in IBC and TAP DMV, where the games were broadcast via the IBC channel and Tap Sports.

The current television contract with Cignal TV began in the 2022 season, where select games are broadcast through One PH and One Sports+. Beginning with the 2023 season, games are also broadcast on Media Pilipinas TV via Cignal TV.

The league broadcasts all of its games through its official Facebook, YouTube, and Kumu pages, as well as on Cignal Play and iWantTFC.