The original Buffalo Bisons baseball club played in the National League between 1879 and 1885. The Bisons played their games at Riverside Park (1879–1883) and Olympic Park (1884–1885) in Buffalo, New York. The NL Bisons are included in the history of the minor-league team of the same name that still plays today; it is thus the only NL team from the 19th century that both still exists and no longer plays in Major League Baseball.

The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP) of 1871–1875, the NL is sometimes called the Senior Circuit, in contrast to MLB's other league, the American League, which was founded 25 years later and is called the "Junior Circuit". Both leagues currently have 15 teams.