The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) was founded on October 23rd, 1989 following a 20-month campaign initiated by Mr. Hung, Tung-Sheng, owner of Brother Hotel Inc., and the "Professional Baseball Formation Committee" was founded also by Hung and chaired by the President of Chinese Taipei Baseball Association, Tang Pan-Pan. Tang later was elected to the first Commissioner of CPBL while Hung became the secretary general.
The formation committee successfully recruited four business entities including Wei Chuan Corp., Uni-President Enterprises Corp., Mercuries & Associates and Brother Hotel Inc. to form a four-club league. CPBL held its inauguration game on March 17th, 1990 as the Uni-President Lions defeated the Brother Elephants with the score of 4-3. The nation with rich baseball history therefore entered its professional baseball era. Since professional baseball was introduced to the public in Taiwan, baseball has more than ever blended into the life of Taiwanese people. The total accumulated attendance has reached 10 millions in 1997 as the Presidents, Prime Ministers, other political dignities and celebrities were among the enthusiastic fans in the ballparks throughout the island.
The league was joined by two franchises in 1993 as the Chinatimes and Jungo organizations became the new members of the expanded league. In 1997, the CPBL expanded again with the addition of CTBC (called Chinatrust at the time) to become a seven-club competition. However, the Chinatimes organization was suspended in 1997 due to the allegation of involvement with game fixing scandal, and it ultimately withdrew from baseball in 1998. The Mercuries and Wei Chuan organizations also withdrew from baseball at the end of 1999 season, citing long time financial loss and change of corporate policies.
On January 13th, 2003 the CPBL franchises signed merger agreement with the Naluwan Corporation to bring the professional baseball in Taiwan back to single-league era, ending the six-year fierce competition between the two leagues for talent and territories. With the dissolving of the Taiwan Major League, CPBL enters its 14th season with two new franchises (Gida and Agan) in addition to Bulls, Elephants, Lions and the Whales. The Gida team was later purchased by Macoto Bank and changed its name to Macoto COBRAS, while La new Corporation took over the ownership of the Agan team and transformed to what is known as La new Bears.
In the beginning of 2008 the “D-media” purchased the rights of ownership from Macoto COBRAS. However, the game fixing scandal involving both D-media T-REX’s ownership and players was revealed by the prosecutions during the later part of the season. The league first suspended T-REX from playing in the remaining of the season and later decided to expel the team from the league, marking the first club in CPBL history to be expelled.
In just one month after the D-media T-REX was expelled, CTBC announced its withdrawal from the league, ending its 12-year history with Taiwanese professional baseball. After the change during the 2008 off-season, CPBL started 2009 with just four teams: Bears, Bulls, Elephants and Lions. La new organization changed their franchise from Kaohsiung to Taoyuan in 2011 season and changed their name from La new Bears to Lamigo Monkeys.
Following the conclusion of the 2012 season, Sinon organization sold the club to E-United Group, the new owner then moved the franchise to Kaohsiung and named its club EDA Rhinos.
At the end of 2013, CTBC made a comeback, replacing Brother Hotel as the title sponsor of the Brother Elephants, who became the CTBC Brothers.
In November 2016, Fubon financial group signed a contract with E-United Group to purchase the EDA Rhinos and announced the new team as Fubon Guardians. Yeh, Chun-Chang, the former manager of EDA Rhinos, stayed and became the first manager in the history of Fubon Guardians. In the 2020 season, Hong, I-Chung, the manager with most victories and most championships in CPBL history takes over the role.
In May 2019, Commissioner John Wu officially announced that CPBL has agreed Ting Hsin Group to join the CPBL as the Wei Chuan Dragons. The Dragons entered the minor league in 2020 and returned to the major league in 2021. After more than 20 years, Wei Chuan Dragons return to CPBL since its dissolution in 1999. It is also that CPBL has five clubs again since 2008.
In September 2019, the Lamigo Monkeys was officially resold to the Japanese enterprise Rakuten Group, and begun their new season with a new name Rakuten Monkeys from the 2020 season.
Under Commissioner Tsai, Chi-Chang's tenure, the TSG Group announced its commitment to the CPBL in 2022 with the establishment of a new team, the TSG Hawks. The expansion brought CPBL back to a six-club size after more than a decade. The TSG Hawks attended the minor league season in 2023 and officially inaugurated their first major league season in 2024.