What about in Auckland though. Is League now not par with Union?

you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of clubs that would benefit by realigning themselves with RU.

There is the potential with the new Australian TV deal, that this wil significantly raise the income streams of RL teams in Australia.

Talk is of a $1billion TV deal.

If this happens then the salary cap could go up by $3-5 million. This would significantly raise player earnings potential. The total salary cap per club would be around $10million. In such a scenario a club with a 25 man squad could pay each player an average of $400k a year. This would mean the likelyhood of the $1million a year star player becoming a distinct posibility.

A young Rugby union player in NZ faced with earning potentially a maximum of $200k a year playing in Super 14 or $400k+ a year in the NRL, is likely to think seriously about choosing RL as a career option.

Over a period of time this is likely to cause a drain of Southern hemisphere union talent over to league.
It wont necessarily come in the form of big name defections, but in 16 year old players picking league ahead of union.
Historically in NZ, things went the other way, and many of the star young league players chose Union. Lomu being a classic example.

The same also applies to players from the islands, who are more likely to choose League in the future due to the earnings potential in that sport.

The above is also why i fear for the survival of SL as a viable professional competition when faced witha cashed up NRL. An exodus of star RL players from the UK to Aus, is likely to make British RL a less attactive proposition to watch either live or on TV. This would result in reduced revenues at the gate, via sponsorships, and also in any TV deal.
The game may then see clubs go to the wall or, at the very least revert back to a semi pro level.

As far as I know Auckland is a hotbed of RL but union is still strong there.
But what about the rest of the country,union is by far the stronger of the two and this for me is the problem.
The NZRL have to try and get the kids into the game so the amateur game can thrive,if this happens the game will get stronger.
I would like to know how many people are actually playing RL in the country compared to union.

chair maker, true on most points except more than likely the salary cap will go up to $6.5 - 7 million and the rest is for expansion other costs

that will still see top players on around 1.5 - 2 million with exemption to salary caps for 3rd party sponsors and marquee players allowance

with that kind of wage well be attracting any union player we want

and this is only 12 months away

this..


In a huge show of confidence in the Storm and the NRL, Matt McGahan and Cade Umaga have chosen to play league rather than pursue representative careers in union.

The two are junior stars in the rival code, with McGahan, a five-eighth, named man of the match in the New Zealand rugby union schoolboys' 30-21 defeat of their Australian rivals in Dunedin on October 6, and Umaga being named in the national under-17 merit team.
Advertisement dramas last season there is going to be plenty of opportunities for young up-and-comers like Matt and Cade.

McGahan, 17, is due to move to Melbourne at the end of the year and will start next season with the club's under-18 SG Ball team, while 16-year-old Umaga will remain in Wellington for another year to complete his schooling before joining the Storm on a full-time basis in 2012.'"

The situation you describe above where one code has a higher salary cap and therefore having the potential to prove more attractive to prospective players is exactly the same in the UK except it is Union with the higher cap than League. If the increased cap causes the talent drain from Union to League in the Southern hemisphere then is it not logical to assume that the opposite will happen here? If that is the case, then it is Rugby Union that is the biggest threat to SL being a viable competition in the UK not the NRL

In reality, neither will happen because the two are different sports and while there will always be fluctuations in power in any given region the two will both continue

As a Rugby League fan, I rest pretty easy in the knowledge that the open playing field we have these days in player movements (both amatuer and professional) is good for the sport because at the end of the day, ours is a better sport to play and watch

I’m not saying that we merge the games together.

I’m talking about merging resources.

On the field they’ll still be rugby league and rugby union separate.

I read on a forum last week that NZ Warriors are aiming to sign at least two Rugby Union All Blacks after RU World Cup.

Merging resources,if this happened it would end up one code of rugby and we would be the losers.
As for staying seperate you have got to be kidding,it would be the nail in the coffin for RL.
We have got to go on our own so our game can flourish and stay away from union completely.

Rugby Union of today isn’t the rugby union of yesterday.

Either way rugby league is going its own way and it’ll be fine for a while yet. But I still think that it’s a sinking ship with the way things are going.

It’ll never merge into one code because the rugby league fans wouldn’t want it. There’s probably some union fans that wouldn’t be too keen either. But I’m sure that we’ll be more than happy to share each others stadiums and players a lot more flexible than we do at the moment.

Ok so both sports have had a downturn in attendances. However football has also had a downturn in attendances along with other sports in the UK thanks to the ‘recession’.

However Rugby league can’t really afford to lose fans considering we have less than the other sports. I just think that rugby union is starting to look a lot better than rugby league. However there’s no doubt that rugby leagues Benji Marshall is the best rugby player in the world right now either code.

Its also interesting what chair maker has said about the $1billion TV deal for the NRL. I suppose it could improve things, but the French will probably always have the upper hand when it comes to playing for mega bucks. It wasn’t all that long ago that Mark Gasnier was in France.

Another interesting point is that we’ve managed to attract two promising youngsters from Union. However both codes do this all the time. But you never see people in the calibres of Mark Gasnier or SBW convert to league. Ok Gasnier has come back to league now, but that’s because he probably wanted back in league. Just like Chev Walker and Lee Smith to name a few who’ve gone there and come back.

Its all pointing Unions way at the moment and league needs to sort its act out fast.

Yeah.....FIFA must be really worried about League

I agree that a second NZ Franchise would be good for the game and I also agree that they should be based in Wellington with games in Christchurch. I also am starting to be of the opinion that NZRL could make massive inroads into the dominant code here.....but if anyone doubts how big Union actually is here, then they need their bumps looking at.
Attendances at Union are falling, but the All Blacks are the No1 sporting team in this country.

Australian posters on these boards seem to have trouble grasping that just because Union is a third rate sport in their neck of the woods, elsewhere, it is by far the bigger code. League could sustain a second NZ team......the fans would turn out and I agree that 10,000 would be a good figure, but unless the AB's choke AGAIN next year, Union will always be the stronger code in NZ.......

great news.

piri weepu has always wanted to play RL and SBW is a league boy