Following the success of franchise Twenty20 cricket leagues such as the Indian Premier League around the world, the Bangladesh Cricket Board announced a plan to replace the National Cricket League with a franchise based league. On 18 January 2012 the board entered into a 6-year, 350-crore deal with Game On Sports Group to establish a franchise tournament. The deal gave the group exclusive management rights to the tournament. The league founded with six franchises from the largest cities of Bangladesh. During the franchise auction 13 companies took part in the bidding process, with six winning the rights of each clubs. The auction fetched 305-crores, with Chittagong Kings being the most expensive.

The first edition of the league was officially launched on 9 February 2012, in a lavish opening ceremony at , home of Bangladesh Cricket. The initial player auction was held on 18 and 19 January 2012 and the first match in the tournament staged on 9 February 2012 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium between Sylhet Royals and Barisal Burners. The first championship game was between Dhaka Gladiators and Barisal Burners, with Dhaka Gladiators emerging as champions after winning by eight wickets. All matches in the first edition of the league were held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium and Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium.

Rangpur Riders were added as a seventh team for the 2012–13 season following the addition of Rangpur as the seventh administrative division of Bangladesh. Dhaka Gladiators again emerged as champions beating Chittagong Kings in the final by 43 runs. Sher-e-Bangla Cricket Stadium in Dhaka hosted most matches while the MA Aziz Stadium replaced the Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong and Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium in Khulna hosted matches of the tournament for the time in 2013.

Following accusations of match fixing during the 2012–13 season, the owners of all six original franchises were suspended in 2013 due to constant violations of the league regulations and delays in making payments to players. The owners of Dhaka Gladiators were handed a lifetime suspension by the governing committee.[1] A number of players and administrators were handed bans for match fixing, including the captain of Bangladesh Mohammad Ashraful.

Following the match fixing scandal, the league was not played in either the 2013–14 or 2014–15 season. It returned in the 2015–16 season with six new franchises and matches played in the run up to the Victory Day national holiday in mid December. Comilla Victorians won the competition, beating Barisal Bulls by three wickets. In advance of the 2016–17 edition of the league one franchise, the Sylhet Super Stars, was suspended following breaches of disciplinary regulations[2] and two new franchises, Khulna Titans and Rajshahi Kings, were introduced bringing th number of teams in the competition back to seven