2025 MPBL season

The 2025 MPBL season is the seventh season of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) and its fourth under professional status. The regular season began on March 8, 2025 with the opening ceremony at the Capital Arena in Ilagan, Isabela. The season will end in December with the 2025 MPBL finals.
This season features 30 teams. The league expanded to the Cagayan Valley region for the first time with the addition of the Ilagan Isabela Cowboys. Three teams (Basilan Viva Portmasters, Cebu Classic, and Pasig City) made their comebacks. This season will also see the introduction of the league’s play-in tournament to be held in between the regular season and playoffs.
The Pampanga Giant Lanterns are two-time defending champions and reigning North Division champions, while the Quezon Huskers are the reigning South Division champions.
This season will also mark the first of a new two-year title sponsorship deal with gambling company 1xbet.
On February 2, 2025, the league announced a couple of changes to its playoff format, the biggest being the addition of a play-in tournament similar to the NBA's play-in round, which will be contested by teams ranked seventh through tenth in their respective divisions. The seventh and eighth-ranked teams will play for the seventh seed in the playoffs. The losing team will face the winner of the game between the ninth and tenth-ranked teams for the eighth seed and the final playoff spot. Due to this change, only the top six teams will directly advance to the playoffs.
In addition, the division finals is made a best-of-five series from the best-of-three series in previous seasons. These changes mark the first since the league expanded the playoffs to a 16-team pool due to the league's national expansion in 2019.
On January 22, the league announced that it will not host a Preseason Invitational tournament this season, so that the competing teams can focus on building their rosters. This will mark the first time in the professional era that the league will not host such a tournament.
Teams were given until February 1 to submit their intent to compete, although some were given extensions. This season, 30 teams will compete, one more than the 29 teams of the previous two seasons. This makes it the second-biggest team pool in league history, only behind the 2019–20 season, which had 31 teams compete. However, the final lineup of teams as well as the division alignment is currently unannounced.
On January 16, commissioner Kenneth Duremdes announced that an expansion team based in Ilagan, Isabela will join the regional league this season. The team, later named the Ilagan Isabela Cowboys, was formally established on February 1, marking the first time the league has a team based in the Cagayan Valley region and will continue the expansion into Northern Luzon, following additions of the Pangasinan Heatwaves and the Abra Weavers last season.
Three teams also made their return. After being absent in the last three seasons, the Basilan's MPBL team is set to return this season as the Basilan Viva Portmasters (initially the Basilan Starhorse), having competed in the 2019–20 season as the Basilan Steel, and as a guest team in the 2021 Preseason Invitational as the Basilan Jumbo Plastic. Similarly, Cebu's MPBL team will also return for the first time since 2020, now known as the Cebu Classic. The Pasig City MPBL team is the last team to make its return, after not competing in the previous season.
On the other hand, three teams made their depatures. The Bicolandia Oragons and Iloilo United Royals left the league after competing in three of the last four seasons while the Negros Muscovados depart after two seasons. This means that Bicol Region and Western Visayas won't have any representatives for their respective regions.
The Ilagan Isabela Cowboys were placed in the North Division alongside Pasig City while the Basilan Viva Portmasters and Cebu Classic were placed in the South Division. To balance both divisions, the Rizal Golden Coolers were realigned back to the South, its fourth realignment in history and first since 2023.
The regular season will begin on March 8, 2025. As has been the case since 2023, the season opener and opening ceremony will be hosted by an expansion team from the current season, this time being the Ilagan Isabela Cowboys at the Capital Arena in Ilagan, Isabela. The opening doubleheader will feature the Biñan Tatak Gel and the Abra Weavers in the first game, followed by the Sarangani Marlins and the home team Cowboys in the second game.
Similar to previous seasons, all participating teams will play in a single round-robin tournament for the regular season, playing one game against every other team. This season, the league's 30 teams will each play 29 games. In each gameday, a series of games is played in a designated home arena, with the home team usually playing in the final game.
Under the new postseason format, the top six teams in each division will advance directly to the 2025 MPBL playoffs, while teams ranked seventh through tenth will compete in a play-in tournament for the final two spots.
As of April 5, 2025
The third season of the MPBL's youth league, the Junior MPBL, is expected to begin in April 2025.
This season will be the first of a new television deal with Solar Entertainment Corporation, succeeding Cignal TV, which was the league's television partner from 2022 to 2024. Solar airs a selection of "over 200 games" on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays on its Solar Sports channel throughout the season. The league continues to broadcast all games on its social media platforms.