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.

Should Rangers and Celtic merge?

They'd be guaranteed to win the Sunday Pub League up in skirt-wearing land if they did

When has the RFL spent any sort of significant amount of money doing this?

League is too strong and big a sport to merge with Union.

We in our Northern enclave being fed a constant diet of negative propaganda from the Southern Establishment media may fall for the trick of Union being this huge global sport. However the reality is that apart from New Zealand a country with a population smaller than that of West Yorkshire, no other country has union as its main sport. Union has only a niche sporting presence in the likes of Australia, South Africa, France, England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

League on the other hand is arguably the most popular sport in Australia, certainly it is when TV is brought into things. Australia is one of the worlds richest and largest economies.
Papua New Guinea a country with twice the population of New Zealand also has RL as its official national sport. Its only failing its its extreme poverty, which will hopefully be alleviated now they have found vast oil reserves in the country.
The New Zealand warriors RL team are helping to boost the profile for League in New Zealand. Thousands travelled to Aus to see their grand final teams, while 20,000 fans descended on Mount Smart stadium in NZ to watch the three finals on the big screen.

Is the subtext to this a club version of Sam Tomkins' thinking - "Wigan fan thinks their club is being held back by the sport so wants to go to perceived brighter lights and bigger paydays of RU"?

A couple of setbacks on the field, perceived wrongs off it, a conviction that they have been hard done to = time to give away the sport built up over 116 years? Bewildering but then it is a Wigan fan.

The OP is delusional that RU wouldn't destroy everything that is good about Rugby League the moment it took control.