I think both sports are at a disadvantage and they would be stronger together as a force against football and as a sport in terms of quality than on their own.



For Rugby League:

- Various expansion projects out of the heartlands have failed. Our core markets of the UK, France and Australasia have seen minimal growth outside their key areas and into other countries to a large extent.

- We have a good product but are overshadowed by a sport that is more widespread and has the financial muscle to poach our best players.

- Rugby Union is particularly strong in England, and despite the club scene not being quite as strong as Rugby League their financial muscle can take our best players, making Superleague a feeder league to them.



For Rugby Union:

- RL has the more entertaining product and innovations in league have prevented them from changing their game too much.

- RL is incredibly strong in Australia, RU is particularly weak, if there was unification the sport would be able to cover the whole of the market and outdo other sports.

- RL in the UK covers the north of England, where their structures are weak. A reunified Rugby would cover the whole country and access the best players from across the country. It would also help a national strategy.



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What has brought this on, RL is losing. RU is gaining more and more power, they can either wait to gain northern England when the remaining RL clubs die out or we can join them. By contrast, RLs bargaining chip is that we have a powerful setup in Australia, and we have the game that they would be willing to change to. We would need to use chip to get some changes made in the way RU is played, but overall, I think it would be beneficial to both sports, particularly RL.

Both sports have developed separate and distinct playing styles, requiring vastly differing skills and mentalities.



They're two separate sports, let's keep it that way.



RL's been on its deathbed on and off since the schism, but has always survived. Just accept that it will always be a largely provincial sport, look on any expansion as a bonus, and enjoy it for what it is.



Besides, any moves to merge the two sports would be portrayed by the RU-supporting [Establishment media as the northern rugby league oiks crawling back to their betters with their tails between their legs.



(and not to mention that RL in Aus is such big business, more than able to stand alone as financially viable)

A merger might seem attractive to some in English rugby league and union, particularly the unsuccessful national team. It would also offer the opportuntiy to form a very strong domestic league with the best clubs from each sport.



However in reality league would just be swallowed and forgotten, in England at least. The rest of the mergers outside of Australia, England and NZ would barely cause a blip on the radar, it would jsut be union swallowing up league.



In Australia there is far to much history. The NRL would gain bugger all from merging with union. What would happen to the NRL? It could hardly merge all 16 clubs with the Super 15 now could it. More likely the sport would cover a national market and completely alienate thousands of supporters, virtually forming a third code. Why would the NRL bother when it's looking a potentially huge windfall.



In terms of a united rugby code creating a powerful Australia I doubt that matters. There are only 22 million people in Australia after all, the markets the IRB really want to target are places like he USA.



To be honest I could see a future where league was so on it's knees in England that it crawled to union for reunification but that's the doom and gloom scenario, there are after all many positives that don't get talked up among the negativity. Not entirely impossible that league would be left as an Australasian only sport becoming a bit more like an AFL/NFL sport.



And finally, I'd be pretty certain that not long after any sort of unification that involved changes to league rules the union big wigs ( who would undoubetly dominate any governing body) would porbably jsut start re-introducing bits of union rules and thus rugby league would be dead.

The sport of Rugby Union has been openly and fully professional for the last 16 years. This period has also seen significant growth of the sport of Rugby League where it is now played the length and breadth of the country across amateur, school and university clubs... If League was going to be “on its knees in England”, it would have happened in this period



Now, potential rugby players across the country have the choice of which code to play and it is ‘may the best game win’... I firmly that game is Rugby League

I'm sorry but that is just dillusional. Money will win, and money is on RU's side.



If I was an RL chairman, after recent embarassments in RL, Crusaders demise, Quins changing their name again, clubs going to the wall, the club call joke, and developing players only for them to chase money to the other side where there would be a pot of gold waiting for my club to watch the best players. I would be considering pushing for a merger to secure my club in sports long term future.

It’s not delusional at all. Your thinking of professional clubs – I am thinking of the game as a whole



The RFU have always had more money than the RFL and yet the recent expansion of our game across the country has been fantastic



Stop thinking about ‘my club’ and think about ‘my sport’

The only surprise to me is that the likes of wigan,leeds and hull have not already gone back to the mother code.

Aye those are pretty much the positives I elluded to and to add to that a lot of countries are starting to take the game up. I mean we just had Canada vs South Africa, Serbia vs Ukraine, Denmark vs Norway. Why would the people who are working tirelessely at grassroots level around the world suddenly want to merge with union. They obviously wouldn't as league is the game they've chosen to play!



Besides the premise of taking on football as a reason for merging is a pretty awful one. We don't need and can't possibly be the biggest sport in the world, we jsut need enough grassroots and commercial growth to sustain our game and keep it as entertaining as it is and continue to produce some of the most exciting and althletic players in world sport that sadly don't get enough recognition.

Basketball and Netball are to merge...

The answer to the title of the thread is "No"

What do you think they'll call it?.

Because we love League, Union in Hull is smaller than ice hockey. We have the greatest game of all. No need to merge with Union, how would it work anyway? No body would want to change the rules so vastly, there would be other break away codes.