The Baltimore Bayrunners were part of the International Basketball League (IBL). The Bayrunners were the first professional basketball team Baltimore had seen since the now-Washington Wizards moved from Baltimore in 1973. (The Memphis franchise of the former American Basketball Association had intended to move to Baltimore for what turned out to be that league's final season, 1975-76, but then folded without ever actually playing a game in Baltimore.) The Bayrunners played in the 1st Mariner Bank Arena (formerly the Baltimore Arena). The Bayrunners were a charter member of the IBL but lasted only one of the league's two seasons and were not in existence when the surviving IBL teams merged with teams that had moved over to it from the defunct Continental Basketball Association to form a revitalized CBA.

Apparently the copyright to the Bayrunners logo, name, and color scheme has been bought by a group proposing a revival, for the 2004_05 season, of the former All_American Basketball Association, a failed effort at a basketball minor league in the late 1970s; whether this proposed league ever materializes and whether the Bayrunners will be part of it remains to be seen.