Royal Challengers Bangalore were one of the ten teams that took part in the 2011 Indian Premier League. They were captained by former New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori and coached by Ray Jennings. They finished as runners-up of the tournament after losing to Chennai Super Kings in the final. With this, they qualified for the 2011 Champions League Twenty20, where they again finished runners-up after losing the final to the Mumbai Indians.

Royal Challengers had reached the semifinals in the 2010 edition of the IPL where they were defeated by the Mumbai Indians. They qualified for the 2010 Champions League Twenty20 as the third IPL team after beating Deccan Chargers in the qualification match. After a decent run in the CLT20, they were defeated by the Chennai Super Kings in the semifinals by 52 runs.

The 2010 season was also the last for their skipper Anil Kumble who had planned to retire from all forms of cricket. Kumble had taken over the captaincy from Rahul Dravid in 2009, after the team's poor showing in 2008, and led them to the finals in 2009 and semifinals in 2010.

With the addition of two more teams in the IPL for the 2011 season, it was declared by the IPL Governing Council that each franchise can retain a maximum of four players of their squad for the 2011 season, only three of whom can be Indian players, and the rest of the international players would be put in the mega-auction. The spending power for each franchise at the mega-auction was restricted to $9 million. The player retention clause also stated that if a franchise decides to retain four players, $4.5 million will be charged, leaving the franchise with only $4.5 million to spend at the auction.

The Royal Challengers retained only one player, Virat Kohli, for a price of $1.8 million, thus leaving them with $7.2 million to spend at the players auction. At the auction, they bought several top international cricketers like AB de Villiers, Daniel Vettori, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Zaheer Khan and Dirk Nannes. The most expensive buy at the auction, however, was Saurabh Tiwary who had an impressive 2010 IPL season with the Mumbai Indians, as he went for $1.6 million. Other Indian players bought at the auction include Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammed Kaif and Abhimanyu Mithun.

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