Why? I think we should call it Speedball personally. Speedball XIII, with skull logos for all clubs. Play it indoors, have a Go Pro on every player and bring back the shoulder charge.

The word 'rugby' to me conjures up images of Range Rovers, posh lads and hooped jerseys with high-waisted shorts. I never use the word.

+1 for Speedball XIII

I think that we should rename it The Greatest Game.

That way every time a radio or TV commentator or reporter talks about it, or a newspaper or magazine journalist writes about it, they have to use the term The Greatest Game.

Common folks, in fact people in general, will surely be intrigued by this game name, and want to take a look.

The word rugby, used on its own, sets the teeth on edge. Rugby league, however, ties into all things in life that are good.

Rugby League has to stay, but you talk American football it's NFL, in Australia we talk of NRL so maybe we should push RFL as the "brand" and build on that but definitely keep rugby in the title.

But that kind of thing doesn't work here. No one calls it the EPL, AP or ESL (other than as shorthand internet use). They call it the Premier League, Rugby or Aviva Premiership and Super League.

Hear what you're saying, Him, but it's snappy and people might actually ask what the R stands for

Aye, NFL NBA NHL MLS MLB NRL AFL SPL EPL BBL...all brand names.

We are actually already known as ESL on Aussie message baords and in some Aussie media. And if we invite Toulouse over there's even more scope for that.

But [iwe[/i don't actually call our sports any of those names (edit, just seen someone else say that above too!)

Aye, cos 'Superleague' reminds them of some War or other...

and 'speedball'? no thanks. keep it as rugby then.

I say EPL. But I admit it's more about making people's pi55 boil than being understood.

Real Rugby?

We do have a problem with identity: inner city Rochdale pub: a regular, who runs a sports club in the town, asked me last week what "is" the difference between the two.
She shops in Morrisons which is on the old Athletic Ground and has pictures of the old ground.

Speedball? Isn't that what Gaz Hock has before a game?

LOL, the op talked about changing the name of our sport to something else, and we then seem to have moved on to suggesting calling it the ESL. That's the name of the top league in our game, not the name of the sport itself!

Soccer is still called soccer, or footie as a colloquial name, with Premier League or EPL relating to the single competition at the top of a 12 level pyramid of the sport.