[1] Daewoo Royals headed into the 1986 K League season as continental champions after clinching the 1985–86 Asian Club Championship, becoming the first South Korean side to accomplish this feat after defeating Al-Ahli 3–1 after extra time in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

At the end of the 1995 season, K League sides began the process of "localizing", and the club became known as Pusan Daewoo Royals (Korean: 부산 대우 로얄즈) in reference to its city of residence.

During the playoffs, the Royals managed to knock out Chunnam Dragons and Bucheon SK to secure the right to face the defending champions, Suwon Samsung Bluewings, but lost in the final 4–2 on aggregate.

Aside from winning the Korean FA Cup for the first time in the club's history in 2004 under the guidance of Scottish manager Ian Porterfield (defeating Bucheon SK in a penalty shoot-out), the trophy cabinet remained largely empty.

[3] Towards the end of the 2016 season, with an immediate return to the K League Classic looking unlikely, IPark moved back to their smaller, previous home ground, the Gudeok Stadium.

Despite again failing in their promotion bid, Busan broke numerous attendance records for the K League 2, including over 10,000[4] for the home leg of the playoff final.

However, despite leading at half-time against both Incheon United and Seongnam FC, Busan lost both games and finished in last place, thus getting relegated back to the K League 2.

[5] Because of this major blow, at the start of 2021 Busan's board chose to pursue a general rebuild, which was opened by massive changes in the locker room: a multi-phased trade with Ulsan Hyundai saw Lee Kyu-seong and homegrown rising star Lee Dong-jun depart, in favour of Choi Jun, Park Jeong-in, Lee Sang-heon and Jung Hoon-sung; other prominent players, including Han Ji-ho (who went to Bucheon FC 1995), Kang Min-soo (to Incheon United), Rômulo (to Chengdu), Kim Moon-hwan (who joined MLS club Los Angeles FC) and Kwon Hyeok-kyu (due to military service at Gimcheon Sangmu), left the club as well; the previous year's top scorer and MVP, An Byong-jun, as well as Ahn Joon-soo, Park Min-gyu (on loan), Valentinos Sielis, Domagoj Drožđek and Ryan Edwards, were all brought in.

[6][7] Although the young Portuguese manager succeeded in implementing new training strategies at the club and giving young players more chances, he had a controversial relationship with supporters, while the team's results were panned by inconsistency and lack of balance: having the worst defence of the league (with 56 conceded goals) and relying mainly on two players for goals (An Byong-jun and Park Jeong-in), Busan finished fifth in the league and out of the promotion play-offs.

[7] Nevertheless, new positives were still taken as backbone player Kim Jin-kyu established himself as one of the best midfielders of the season, while Choi Jun and An Byong-jun were nominated in the league's Best XI, as the latter also won both his second Top Scorer and MVP awards in a row.

12 — Club supporters (the 12th man) 16 — Kim Joo-sung, 1987–1999 (winger, attacking midfielder, centre-back) Source: Official website[9] All results list Busan's goal tally first.