If league, union merged, would you support it?

rugby league is a minor sport in all states and territory of australia except for two. can''t wait to see the melbourne rebels back in action.

rugby league is a minor sport in england and the media would treated as such. same as rugby league in melbourne. Same as RU in OZ....& shrinking. At least the Storm get on FTA in Australia...Where is the super 14....on pay with ratings on par to the toyota cup. Last attempt at a professional comp ...ARC...RIP...cost the ARU 150K to get the ABC to broadcast it... Can't wait for ARC#2...

are you saying that the english rugby league team are going to get between 7 million and 8 million on fta and 10 million to 12 million for rugby league world cup games ? not a chance. rugby league is a minor sport in england and the media would treated as such. same as rugby league in melbourne.

The figures for the league game a pretty good considering the favoured press coverage/promotion of the union internationals. I'd imagine a more competitive England RL side and greater coverage would see the league figures equal and perhaps surpus the union figures, if things can go right in the future. It's also good to know super league regularly beats the GP in TV ratings, which union fans consider better than internationals.

Matt You do a disservice to the UK press, if there is a story that is newsworthy they will latch onto it regardless of where it comes from. At the beginning of last season Quins RL stated very promisingly and were in the top 3 of SL, but they fell away very badly and judging from the e-mails I receive they are struggling to sell season tickets for the forthcoming season as the "early bird" offer has been extended twice. I am still unsure whether I will renew as the entertainment value towards the end of the season was pretty poor. Instead I might just cherry pick my games v the Saints, Rhinos, so at least I can see some decent RL. Can I also perhaps educate you a little as to the spread of RU. It is true that in England it was the preferred sport for many private schools, military etc but there are many parts of the UK, indeed the majority where RU is played across all social stratas. In Wales, it is the national sport, In England there are many regions where RU is strong and not reliant on the old boy network, for example, Devon and Cornwall, East Midlands, West Midlands even Lancashire and Yorkshire, where Yorkshire are the current county champions. These are the stalwarts of the amateur ethos and where participation is the bye word coupled of course with the social side. The most capped English international is Jason Leonard, a plumber from Barking in East London. The development of the professional game in RU has meant that players such as the Armitage brothers, who have come from modest backgrounds have a meaningful career in rugby. The common perception that rugby union is a game riddled with class issues is changing rapidly as money is a great leveller,. I am not saying that still those who want to attack RU as an elitist sport will change their views, but regardless RU has changed and that must worry RL because as a professional sport it offers a greater opportunity for a rugby player to have a decent career. That is why there is greater movement albeit limited from RL to RU, as far as the players are concerned. There is another reason why England fans boo and it is quite simple, the fans see better games of rugby in the GP and expect England to replicate that game. They don't like to see players who every week perform very differently from when they perform for England. I believe it a coaching issue. Lastly here are the viewing figure for week ending 14th November. The highest is Eng v Argentina (RU), the final of the 4 Ns is 5th or 6th. Sky Sports 1 w/e 15 Nov 2009 000's 1 LIVE INTERNATIONAL PRO20 CRICKET (Sun 12:00) 492 2 REP OF IRELAND V FRANCE-LIVE (Sat 19:30) 419 3 WALES V SCOTLAND - LIVE (Sat 14:33) 388 4 SOUTHAMPTON V BRIGHTON-LIVE (Sun 16:15) 378 5 LIVE INTERNATIONAL PRO20 CRICKET (Fri 15:30) 360 6 LEEDS UTD V GRIMSBY TOWN-LIVE (Tue 19:30) 300 7 HUDDERSFIELD V WYCOMBE-LIVE (Sat 12:00) 287 8 SOCCER AM (Sat 09:00) 261 9 SOUTHAMPTON V CHARLTON-LIVE (Wed 19:30) 227 10 LIVE FOOTBALL LEAGUE (Mon 19:30) 221 Sky Sports 2 w/e 15 Nov 2009 000's 1 LIVE INTERNATIONAL RUGBY UNION (Sat 14:00) 528 2 LIVE FOUR NATIONS RUGBY LEAGUE (Sat 19:00) 301 3 HAYE V VALUEV-THE FINAL JUDGEMENT (Sat 17:00) 140 4 LIVE ANGLO WELSH RUGBY UNION (Sun 13:30) 73 5 EUROPEAN TOUR GOLF (Sun 09:00) 72 6 NFL LIVE (Sun 17:31) 59 7 LIVE INTERNATIONAL RUGBY UNION (Sat 22:00) 49 8 EUROPEAN TOUR GOLF (Sat 09:00) 48 9 LIVE TENNIS (Wed 10:00) 46 10 LIVE PREMIER LEAGUE SNOOKER (Thu 19:30) 44

Heres a bit of a insight on RL in New Zealand. There was no official banning but there may as well have been. There is a real "elitist" attitude with a lot of the older generation in New Zealand toward RL. At my high school St Peters college in Auckland a group of Senior pupils put forward the proposal of a 1st 13 RL team to enter the Auckland Schools competition. We had a coach ready to go and every thing it was starting to gain a bit of momentum and some of the 1st 15 rugby players were thinking about switching. It was stopped by the principal, his illogical reason was that there was no room for two contact sports at the school!. Even tuning in to certain commentators on radio sport NZ the anti RL bias is huge. The worst is a chap called Willie Lose he absolutely hates RL and the thought of it becoming popular! his topics have included drumming up a propaganda campaign against the world cup-winning kiwis getting the Halberg award for best team and Jumping on any bad RL crowds or bad NRL Press .It is really disgusting and laughable. All this this is changing however this older generation is dying and generation Y is growing up watching all sports on Sky TV. Alot of my peers (People aged 18-25) have NRL or soccer as there preferd sport. Of course most still follow he All Blacks as well. Also a note to all roarers do not take any thing Silvia Samoa says about the state of RL in NZ Seriously!!!!!! He really has a chip on his shouler towards RL!!!! To say stuff like "RL is barley hanging on" is far from the case. Give it 10-15 years time and Union will be the one barley hanging on!!!!!

Ian, your summary does not take into account the inherent bias that exists in the British media. No personalities in RL, you gotta be joking! The are not portrayed in the British media simply because RL remains a sport eternally damned by the English upper classes. In contrast, what rugby union player in the UK is a personality? They are like Australian union players dull as dishwater. The UK is not the most egalitarian region of the world. Would Quins RL get coverage if they started gunning for the top echelons of super league? I doubt it. RL is as much an English game as union. RL should hold a special place there because it was one of the few entities to buck the British system of elitism and class bias but that is not what is portrayed to the public when describing RL. Those in control described the game in terms that portrayed RL as backward, provincial etc etc. not a sport that was at the forfront of many British sporting innovations (whether introduced from abroad or not). Rugby union is a sport of priviledge and certainly the borefest that is England in the recent union tests would see a drop in crowds in most sensible countries where actually entertainment drives many sporting contests. People boo at these tests but they continue to turn up and be bored. The simple fact is rugby union is the scientology of sports and it is hard tfor people to shake off the shackles of indocrination. Who in this world doesn't like to be called special, priviledged, elite, heavenly, blah blah?

Crosscoder As you know from your experiences in Wales RU grounds are used by RL without any problem. So there is no issues as far as the WRFU and indeed the RFU in the ESL using RU facilities, indeed it makes alot of sense. At Quins, Quins RL use the Stoop in the summer months and it dovetails very neatly with Quins season. RL share the marketing and ticketing facilities and also they share the proceeds from the Quins Lotto which goes to support the academy set ups for both teams. The main difference is in the gates, although Quins RL celebrates 30 years since it birth in London, the average gates are circa 3500, whereas Quins average just under 12000 from last season and hoping to increase the average since the finish of the new stand to closer to 14000. The last game v London Irish the gate was 14300. The most impressive stat is the growth of the Quins gate from a paltry 3/4000 in 1995 when union went professional to todays average. Will the codes merge is answer is no, indeed there are consideable merits in emphasising the differences. The problem for RL in the UK is that in spite of all the promotion it is not a national sport, it does not have the personalties and stories that the nation media latch onto. If you were to ask Joe Public to name a RL player in the UK he would struggle, but I suspect they would name Johnny Wilkinson, Martin Johnson, Cipriani et al because in addition to being good players over the years they have interviewed well and presented an acceptable face of rugby union. They would also know about "Bloodgate", even the Football fan as the media compare it to "Handgate", resulting from Therry Henry's handball in the game against Ireland. As they say all publicity is good publicity, except for wife bashing etc.

Here are the viewing figures for week ending 8th Nov from Bard. Sky Sports 1 w/e 8 Nov 2009 000s 1 FORD SUPER SUNDAY (Sun 15:35) 2,217 2 FORD SUPER SUNDAY (Sun 13:00) 624 3 GILLETTE SOCCER SATURDAY (Sat 15:02) 507 4 SHEFFIELD UTD V NEWCASTLE-LIVE (Mon 19:30) 480 5 SUPER SUNDAY – THE LAST WORD (Sun 18:30) 438 6 SWANSEA CITY V CARDIFF CITY-LIVE (Sat 12:30) 424 7 SOCCER AM (Sat 09:00) 242 8 GILLETTE SOCCER SATURDAY (Sat 12:00) 227 9 HAYE V VALUEV COUNTDOWN (Sat 17:15) 212 10 DERBY COUNTY V COVENTRY CITY-LIVE (Fri 19:30) 209 Sky Sports 2 w/e 8 Nov 2009 000’s 1 MAN UTD V CSKA MOSCOW-LIVE (Tue 19:00) 991 2 LIVE ENG V AUS RUGBY UNION (Sat 14:00) 532 3 ARSENAL V AZ ALKMAAR-LIVE (Wed 19:30) 413 4 CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GOALS (Tue 22:00) 339 5 RUBIN KAZAN V BARCELONA-LIVE (Wed 17:00) 242 6 CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GOALS (Wed 22:00) 183 7 RUGBY UNION (Fri 19:00) 175 8 LIVE ANGLO-WELSH RUGBY UNION (Sun 13:30) 78 9 HAYE V VALUEV COUNTDOWN (Fri 21:30) 63 10 ATLETICO MADRID V REAL MADRID-LIVE (Sat 20:57) 63 Viewing figures for 4 Nations game Eng v NZ on Nov 7th don’t feature at all. Eng v Aus union international 4th highest, the highest was I think was the Man U game v Chelsea. Paley/Steffy if you are posting explanation please. France v Aus was on BBC (FTA) again doesn’t feature when compared to Wales v AB’s which was circa 2M. RL must be worried as obviously the figures potentially indicate that the 4 Nations hasn’t caught the eye of the viewing public, anyway those who watch from home.

Many US colleges and universities have rugby teams.

oikee oikee oikee. come out to play. here's your expansion dream and your billion dollar tv deal. TV money puts brakes on NRL expansion Brad Walter | November 20, 2009 While rival codes are trumpeting expansion announcements, the NRL has put any plans to introduce teams in new areas on hold after being advised it was unlikely to receive an increase in television revenue. Despite the establishment of new AFL, A-League and Super rugby teams from 2011, NRL chief executive David Gallop revealed yesterday that the issue would not even be discussed again by the league's governing body before then. ''We've done some research during 2009 about expansion and whether we should be expanding to maximise television revenue,'' Gallop said. ''The answer that has come back thus far is that the best thing we can do to maximise television revenue is to have an exciting competition, a competition where there are no easy games, where people are genuinely backing their team every week because they think they are a chance of winning. Adding teams won't necessarily do that for us.'' Gallop made the comments at a forum with club members in Sydney yesterday during which he also outlined the pitfalls for the NRL's rivals if their new teams hit financial trouble. After expanding from 16 teams to 20 in 1995, the game was torn apart by the Super League war. Of the four new clubs introduced, the South Queensland Crushers and Western Reds folded while the Auckland Warriors and North Queensland Cowboys had to be bailed out. ''To be frank, I think some codes are getting in a race to put dots on a map without carefully considering the impact on the remaining clubs, or their current clubs,'' Gallop said. ''I think rugby league has been down that road and made those mistakes, and I wouldn't like to see it make those mistakes again. ''There is nothing worse than to add teams to your competition and have them fall over. It's not only bad for the particular area, it has a ripple effect across the whole game and the confidence that people have in the game and the confidence that players have to play your game.'' The news leaves the Central Coast Bears with an uncertain wait in their quest to return to the NRL, while a Central Queensland consortium has been formed to lobby for a team in Rockhampton, and the Papua New Guinea government wants a side established in Port Moresby. Gallop said the issue would be reviewed in 2011 - a year before the NRL's television deals expire. ''There are obviously target areas we have our eye on - Central Coast, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and perhaps another team in New Zealand,'' he said. ''I think PNG is, quite frankly, a fair way off but our timeline now is to wait until the middle of 2011 before we have a real serious look at expansion again and whether it is the right thing for our competition.'' http://www.smh.com.au/news/lhqnews/t...219925063.html

Storm looms over News league exit PUBLISHED : 8 hours 40 minutes ago | UPDATED: 1 hours 37 minutes ago News Ltd's bid to stem the more than $700 million of losses on its foray into rugby league is being complicated by a deal between the Victorian government and the media group's Melbourne Storm team. http://www.afr.com/p/national/storm_looms_over_news_league_exit_OXQnqpfUEPz0tJkEiXGIJO

rugby is the national sport of wales. soccer is very strong in australia and has huge numbers of players. what's your point ? you might also know that most of those welsh school league players are also cricket and rugby players as well. i've tour wales with an auckland school rep team and club side many times and i know its a rugby country including bridgend. rugby internationals won't take a pay cut to play in a useless team that won't be around in 2013. money is no issue in rugby . league needs the grants more than rugby and soccer . its the lifeline that it need to survive in a very tough market.

as far as im concern the welsh were playing rugby league for over 100 years and didn't find the sport all that attractive to play or watched and it still the same to this day.

who gave an ass about your superleague war ? we had our own world rugby corporation vs nzru, saru and the aru war. but we all moved on . you have nothing but bull excuses and more excuses. cry me a river mate. so the head of rugby used money and profits to expand the game ? Wow, Isn't that their job ? the fact is rugby league decided to stay in sydney, brisbane and northern england instead of expanding into other countries that didn't have any sort of rugby. was rugby suppose to help league with its expansion ? why didn't rugby league expand into other markets that had no rugby, league or any contact sports ? serbia rugby league died in 1969, samoa rugby league died in 1987 and then again in 2001 and its on again. south africa rugby died a couple of years ago and its on again the same for holland, italy and other countries . do you see a patten here ? rugby league can be played in jamaica, russia, serbia and many countries but if they don't have funds or international games it would collapse and players would just stick to rugby. good luck to jamaica but you are comparing a small rugby league competition to a very successful rugby expansion in jamaica. you have rugby to thank for league been in jamaica and many other countries.

Ian Noble. Agree ru is the main sport (although soccer very strong )in Wales,and there is room for rl to grow. Who is getting carried away,still maintain having 65 high schools involved after a few years is not a bad effort,as it has been continual growth. Going back to 2008 there were in toto 150 teams at primary school and senior level playing rl,a 60% increase on the previous year. I have actually watched a Kangaroos v Wales match at Bridgend in 2003,so have an inkling about the area,as well as a match against England A in London.. Moving to Newport is a no brainer. Getting a ru intnl to move to the Crusaders won't happen,that is why the emphasis is on youth now (despite the imports) with the colts side.As you say there are literally thousands of kids who apart from ru,now have another option to play pro rugby in the ESL. It goes without saying ru is huge compared to rl in the UK.So on that basis rl should either merge or die? If the UK govt is prepared to grant Pounds29M to the RFL ,as compared to the Pounds30M to the RFU,then something must be going OK on the rl development scene.

Jus You accuse me of making up or massaging figures.Prove it, or forever hold your peace.You don't like figures provided just say so.Don't accuse me of making up figures(ie lying),when I have cited the Welsh stats,and the other indications are recorded if you bother to check. If you can't comprehend grassroots growth from either nil or a small base,that is your problem not mine.

Siva Samoa. Good to see you continue to operate in denial mode. So the other codes had super league wars,and banning to contend with ?.Do some research .Oh and the heads of the rugby unions for decades(100 years) skimmed off all the profits due to the work of their unpaid union players,and used it for expansionary work. Here is another example of where a code if left unfettered can grow the game. In Serbia RL died off in 1969,but in the 7 years since it was reborn ,the Serbs have established 13 senior teams in two divisions,6 student teams and under 16 and under 18 championship. www.stuff.co.nz/sport/league/3062354/Stokes-coaching-universal-language-of-league.html For you to suggest I am smoking something is laughable,when you bascially accuse people of telling untruths in areas in which they live and develop a sport such as Sth Africa and even in places like Cronulla. BTW ole son rugby league was not even played in Jamaica until a few years ago.To even suggest huge crowds is nonsensical,but that shouldn't surprise me.

Jus. Doubt they will be exaggerating figures.They don't have the usage of the famous calculator that another code has ,which announces 4.5billion watching a world cup in 2007.

M1tch The usual suspects from the dark side,us the "bastardise game" description to induce a feel good factor.They took 100 years to introduce overt payments to players,so 114 years is just another example of them being slow off the mark.