The Melbourne Storm is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the city of Melbourne. They have competed in every season of the National Rugby League Premiership since its inception in 1998. The first fully professional rugby league team based in the Australian rules football-dominated state of Victoria (Victoria, Australia), the Storm have played in the last four National Rugby League (NRL) grand finals, making them one of the leagues top teams. In October 2009, they were ranked the most popular sports team in Melbourne by a national Roy Morgan Poll.

The club won the minor premiership three times in a row from 2006-2008 and contested each grand final from 2006 to 2009, winning in 2007 and 2009, although these titles were later stripped for salary cap breaches. They were named the NRL Team of the Decade for the 2000s. Their coach Craig Bellamy (Craig Bellamy (rugby league)) is the incumbent New South Wales (New South Wales rugby league team) State of Origin (Rugby League State of Origin) coach.

From their inception and until the end of 2009, the Storm played their home games at Olympic Park Stadium. As of Round 9 in the 2010 NRL season, the Storm will play home games at AAMI Park (Melbourne Rectangular Stadium), the first being against the Brisbane Broncos. Prior to this, they will play their first three fixtures of 2010 at nearby Etihad Stadium. Originally a Super League (Super League (Australia)) initiative and one of six NRL teams which are privately owned, the Melbourne club is currently 100% owned and operated by News Limited.

As a result of an NRL investigation, it was announced on 22 April 2010 that the Storm had been stripped of its 2007 and 2009 premierships, fined $500,000 and banned from accruing competition points in the 2010 season after being found guilty of long-term salary cap breaches, intentionally paying its players above the maximum level the NRL allows. Several sponsors,most notably ME Bank, Hostplus and Skins withdrew support from the club while Harvey Norman Jayco , Suzuki and KooGa continued their support, with their logos featuring prominently in a hastily reconfigured jersey. In contrast to those sponsors who distanced themselves, Jayco and Suzuki increased their existing support to compensate for the losses of other sponsors .