Originally, poorly organised Lions teams regularly suffered defeat at the hands of their hosts, but by 1955 the tourists took the matches seriously enough to obtain a 2 – 2 draw in South Africa.

On their 1950 tour of New Zealand and Australia they also adopted the nickname British Lions, first used by British and South African journalists on the 1924 South African tour, after the lion emblem on their ties, the emblem on their jerseys having been dropped in favour of the four-quartered badge with the symbols of the four represented unions.

Although the lion had been dropped from the jersey, the players had worn the lion motif on their ties as they arrived in South Africa, which led the press and public referring to them as " the Lions ".

The Lions won all of their games that did not have test status except for the matches against Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury ; they did however lose three of their four test matches against the All Blacks, winning the first test 6 – 3 ..

In 1936 the Lions visited Argentina for the second time, winning all ten of their matches and only conceding nine points in the whole tour.

Two years later the Lions toured in South Africa, winning more than half of their normal matches.

The Lions won all their games in Australia except for their final fixture against a New South Wales XV in Newcastle.

The 1959 tour to Australia and New Zealand marked once again a very successful tour for the Lions, who only lost six of their 35 fixtures.

The 1962 tour to South Africa saw the Lions still win 16 of their 25 games, but did not fare well against the Springboks, losing three of the four tests.

The Lions also played a test against Canada on their way home, winning 19 to 8 in Toronto.

The 1968 tour of South Africa saw the Lions win 15 of their 16 provincial matches, but the team actually lost three tests against the Springboks and drew one.

The management of the Lions concluded that the Springboks dominated their opponents with physical aggression.

The Lions decided " to get their retaliation in first " with the infamous " 99 call ".

In August 1977 the British Lions made a stopover in Fiji on the way home from their tour of New Zealand.

In their first year in the AFL the Lions made the finals, finishing in eighth position after being defeated by the St Kilda Football Club in a Qualifying Final.

The Browns finished 8 – 4 in 1952, but lost that year's championship game 17-7 after a muffed punt, several Lions defensive stands and a 67-yard touchdown run by Doak Walker scuttled their chances.

The Browns, who lost the last game of the regular season to the Lions only a week before, won their second NFL crown 56 – 10.

In 1994, every NFL team wore throwback jerseys, and the Lions ' were similar to the jerseys used during their 1935 championship season.

The Lions also wore ' 50s-style jerseys during their traditional Thanksgiving Day games from 2001 to 2004 as the NFL encouraged teams to wear throwback jerseys on Thanksgiving Day.

Although the white jerseys of the Minnesota Vikings at the time also had a similar striping pattern and continued as such ( as well as the throwbacks the New England Patriots wore in the Thanksgiving game against the Detroit Lions in 2002, though the Patriots later wore the same throwbacks in 2009 with truncated stripes and in 2010 became their official alternate uniform ), the Colts and most college teams with this striping pattern did not make this adjustment.

With the retirement of Primus at the end of 2005, Tredrea took over the captaincy role full time for the 2006 season but like his predecessor, was struck down by a serious knee injury, suffering a dislocated left kneecap in a preseason game against the Brisbane Lions.

The Lions ' 2005 tour to New Zealand, coached by 2003 England world cup winning coach Clive Woodward, won all seven games against provincial teams however suffered heavy defeats in all three tests and were narrowly defeated by the New Zealand Maori team.

Following the performances of the Canadian, American and Argentine teams at the 2011 Rugby World Cup, some commentators have suggested the Lions conduct a shortened tour the Americas in the future.

The Lions have not had much success during the Super Bowl era: the Lions are one of four current NFL teams that have yet to qualify for the Super Bowl, and the team is 1-10 in post-season play during that period.

In the next seven weeks the Saints beat talented teams such as the eventual Super Bowl XLVI champion New York Giants, Detroit Lions, and Atlanta Falcons, bringing their season record to 12-3.

The Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions qualified for the playoffs despite 4-5 records, the only sub -. 500 teams to reach the NFL playoffs until the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks reached the playoffs following the 2010 season.

In 2011 the Padthaway Netball Club, also called the Lions, has more than seven different teams for netball.

As part of the Norris Division, Tampa Bay had rivalries with teams in Chicago, Detroit, and Minnesota, similar to how the NFL's Buccaneers were in the same division as the Bears, Lions, and Vikings.

The city also boasts one of Ireland's two swimming pools, at The University of Limerick Sports Arena, as well as one of Ireland's top basketball teams, the Limerick Lions, whose home is also at the world class facilities on the University Campus.

In 1925, El Monte Union High School adopted “ The Lions ” name for its teams, and the Gays provided a lion mascot for big games.

Local sports include the Tucker Football League ( Home of the Tucker Lions ), Tucker Youth Soccer Association, and the teams of Tucker High School.

Among the teams ' rivals are the Tewksbury Redmen, Dracut Middies, and the Andover Golden Warriors, though their main rivals are the Chelmsford Lions.

Lyle sports teams used to be called the Lyle Lions.

During his career, he was often compared to Detroit Lions Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders, as both men were extremely successful for their respective teams and combined for 8 rushing titles during the 1990s.

* Rugby has a number of rugby union teams including ; the Rugby Lions, Rugby Welsh, Rugby St. Andrews RFC, Newbold, AEI ( Rugby ) Rugby Football Club and Old Laurentian RFC.

Reduced to eight teams, the CFL shifted Winnipeg to the East Division, making the 1988 Grey Cup between the Blue Bombers and Lions the first championship game between two western Canadian teams.

Detroit, Michigan had four early teams in the National Football League before the Detroit Lions.

While the Lions are well known for playing on Thanksgiving Day, the other Detroit teams had a history of playing on Thanksgiving Day as well:

He is the only player to have captained both the British and Irish Lions rugby union side and the Great Britain rugby league teams.

The five other teams are the Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Raiders of the National Football League, and the Jacksonville Bulls and New Jersey Generals of the defunct United States Football League.

As the Lions do not represent a single nation-state, they do not have a national anthem.

For more than half a century the Lions have been synonymous with the red jersey that sports the amalgamated crests of the four unions.

This tour may have marked the occasion when the team first became known as " the Lions ".

With the announcement of the 2013 schedule and home nation tours to other countries in non-Lions Tour years, it looks extremely unlikely that the British and Irish Lions will have the opportunity to tour Argentina before the 2017 tour of New Zealand.

Lions may have also preyed on the chimpanzees at Mahale Mountains National Park, where at least four chimpanzees could have fallen prey to them.

The Lions have won four NFL Championships, the last in 1957, giving the club the second-longest NFL championship drought behind the Arizona Cardinals.

Aside from a brief change to maroon in 1948 instituted by then head coach Bo McMillin ( influenced by his years as coach at Indiana ), the Lions uniforms have basically remained the same since the team debuted in 1930.

In the years 1953 – 66 the Colts played in the NFL Western Conference ( also known as division ), but were never known to have a significant rivalry with any of the other franchises in that alignment, seeing as they were the eastern-most team and the rest of the division included the Great Lakes franchises Green Bay, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, and after 1961, the Minnesota Vikings.

Since then, the Alouettes have played the remaining team in the league, the BC Lions.

Due to the hierarchical nature of Lions Clubs International, members have the opportunity to advance from a local club to an office at the zone, district, multiple district and international levels.

Lions Clubs have since spread across the globe and have a current membership roster of 1, 368, 683 members world-wide.

Leo Clubs are required to have a Leo Club Advisor, a member of the sponsoring Lions Club who attends meetings and provides general advice to the club.

Social organizations, such as the Lions Club and Rotary International, have also formed stamp collecting groups specific to those stamps that are issued from many countries worldwide that display the organization's logo.

Any future Super Bowl that would have such a combination would have to have the Detroit Lions playing either the Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans, or Jacksonville Jaguars in the game.