Third season for Big6
Preparation for the Big6 season 2016 are underway: For the third time Europes six top teams in American football will compete in the Big6 European Football League and determine the continents top club team in the Eurobowl final. For the preliminary round with matches duing April and May 2015 the group alignment has been set.
Defending Eurobowl champion and German champions New Yorker Lions from Brunswick will join the Vienna Vikings and Big6 debutant Aix-en-Provence Argonautes in group A. Austria's national champion of 2015, the SWARCO Raiders Tirol, competes in group B with German runner-up Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns and the Berlin Adler for a trip to Europes big game.
Big6 was launched in 2014 by the major European clubs in American football with support of the national associations. The cooperation stretches beyond the playing field and the battle for Eurobowl, Europe's most prestigious trophy in club American football, also onto the field of joint marketing initiatives and jointly enhancing media relations.
The participants for 2016 in detail:
Group A
New Yorker Lions: defending and ten time German national champion from Brunswick, Eurobowl champion of last year, won a total of three Eurobowls in 1999, 2003 and 2015
Vienna Vikings: five time Eurobowl champion (2004 to 2007 2013), 13-time Austrian national champions (record), most recently 2012-2014 in three consecutive years
Aix-en-Provence Argonautes: French club with a rich tradition, eightfold national champion of France, in 2016 will celebrate the 25th anniversary of first participation in an European competition in 1991, Eurobowl finalist of 1996
Group B
SWARCO Raiders Tirol: reigning and four-time Austrian champion from Innsbruck, triple Eurobowl winner (most recently in 2008, 2009 and 2011)
Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns: German vice champion and Eurobowl finalist of 2015, twice times German national Champion, during the last five years champion of GFL South each year and four-time German Bowl finalist
Berlin Adler: won six German national championships, two-time Eurobowl-winners in 2010 and 2014 in the first edition of the Eurobowl as final game of Big6
Gameday weekends are:
Week 1: 09./10.04.2016
Week 2: 23./24.04.2016
Week 3: 07./08.05.2016
Fixtures are still to be set, each team plays one home and one road game.