game between the
Vikings Vienna and the New Yorker Lions, 24 April 2016. The Braunschweig Lions were formed in 1987 and the new team entered the tier-three
Regionalliga Nord for that season, where it came third. The Lions were nevertheless promoted to the
2nd Bundesliga, now the
German Football League 2, for the following season and spent the next six years at this level. The team was never outstanding at this level for the first five years, only finishing once with a percentage above 0.500 in this era. In the following six seasons the Lions won the northern division and missed the German Bowl only once when they lost their semi final against
Frankfurt Universe in 2018. In 2014, the club took part in a new European competition, the
BIG6 European Football League, which in its first season consisted of three teams from Germany, two from Austria and one from Switzerland, the clubs being Berlin Adler, New Yorker Lions, Dresden Monarchs,
Raiffeisen Vikings Vienna,
Swarco Raiders Tirol and the
Calanda Broncos. The two best teams of this competition advanced to the Eurobowl XXVIII, where the Lions lost 20–17 to the Berlin Adler. The BIG6 was discontinued in 2018 and therefore had only five seasons. In each of these the Lions made in to the Eurobowl and won all of the following. In the GFL the Lions won the northern division once more in 2014 and defeated the
Munich Cowboys 69–28 in the quarter-finals and the
Cologne Falcons 52–3 in the semi-finals of the play-offs to reach the 2014 German Bowl. The Lions won the championship game against the
Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns 47–9 and took out their ninth national title, staying
undefeated in the GFL that season. In 2015, the Lions won their third Eurobowl, again defeating the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns. The team also won the northern division of the GFL once more and defeated the
Saarland Hurricanes in the quarter-finals and the
Allgäu Comets in the semi-finals of the play-offs, facing the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns next in the German Bowl once more, which the Lions won 41–31. ==Teams==