for rugby league. By calling ourselves rugby league it's helping rugby (union), do you know that the US sevens comp. call themselves the RFL? And I've seen evidence to suggest that RU used the phrase, "we're the real rugby, why do you need two rugby codes in Holland", when the Dutch government stopped funding RL.

We call ourselves rugby in northern England, and football or footy in Australia, and league is parts of NZ, and Wales. In 1922 when the phrase RL was announced, they said we'll come up with another name soon, well, how long is "soon"?

Georgballfans.com not quite got the same ring to it has it!

If it's taken nearly 100 years to come up with Georg(e)ball then I'd estimate it's going to take about 500 years.

Nice to see you scattering a range of stupid ideas around a variety of different RL message boards. That way you don't look a troll........ oh wait

I like the name Rugby League.

I only wish Sky would use it, instead of referring to our sport as "Super League" all the time.

This was discussed in last years RFL review of the game. I have noticed sky seem to say RL a lot more this year to be fair but I guess the SL brand was a vital part of rebranding the sport.

Super League would be alright if no other sport called themselves Super League, but loads of different leagues around the world have started using the term, and even a couple of women's sports in England are using it. I thought there would have bn a copyright issue regarding it. But it seems obvious that we should look for another name.

We were dumb ass for allowing union to take the name "rugby" (sic)

In England the media call it SL, in Oz and NZ NRL. No wonder no one knows what the game is!

for decades the sport has being run by narrow minded, backwards thinking bumpkins with about as much brain power/nous as a class of nursery kids.
It's hardly suprising the sport is in the crocked shape it is compared to a much 'lesser' sport such as union.
The sad thing is we won't ever recover now, it's too late, we had out chances in the 80s and 90s and ballsed it up something chronic, we'll always be also rans, always be a poor sport and always be run by idiots.

What were these chances we missed?

Leagueball is my preferred option. Works on so many levels...

Fans are "leaguies".
Players are "leaguers".
Identifiable with the current name of the sport.
Drops "rugby" so we can move on!

I'm starting to think OzWelsh isn't your real name. I think it might be George Ball.

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Simple really......crosses all language issues and removes any reference to the other code with which some posters seem to have an unhealthy infatuation with.

Or we could continue to call it Rugby League and worry about other issues that actually matter

13 is unlucky. Ah, that explains everything now that I come to think of it. Even Gandalf wouldn't stick at 13 which is partially why he sent Bilbo Baggins with the dwarves. But I digress..

I'm with you on this.

Even if we could come up with the "perfect" alternative name, the difference it makes to the sport will be minimal at best.

We are Rugby League. It's not ideal that we share the name with Rugby Union, but ours is a breakaway sport from Rugby Union and we are both playing different codes of rugby.

When I lived in America I gave up explaining the difference between RL and RU because they wouldn't know the difference if they watched the two games side by side. It might be slightly inconvenient to tell them I like rugby when that's not strictly true, but they are never likely to know what the hell "Georgeball" is or whatever daft suggestion someone else makes.

Do you really need it explaining to you or have you only just got into rugby league?
Maybe it is that you don't understand how the sport had chances to be far wider spread/popular with the nation as a whole and market itself beyond the M62 before the other lot came to (further) prominance..I could give you 1500 words on the matter & it still wouldn't cover how the supposed guardians of the sport have run it into the ground & missed massive chances so that we aren't struggling to get our lead competition some sponsorship every year, and even then it's pitiful.
we have next to no national/international recognition beyond a few weeks of the year at best.

But I can't be fragged to explain it to you if you don't even have a grasp of the basics...

That's rubbish, rugby people in Australia will say they had a chance to get much bigger in Australia after the 2003 WC, but their attendances have gone backwards, and from being the No.2 contact sport in NSW in 2003, they're now No.4. I wouldn't want to be big here as that would men getting in with the Establishment. You may argue that the top of Leagueball in Auz they're part of the Establishment yes to some extent but, Elizabeth might be their last Monarch and most Aussies I reckon want top change the flag, and get rid of the Union Jack on it.

Once coloured TV and the mass media was in, that was it, would be impossible to displace a popular after that. And in any case, rugby is a niche sport, and probably will always be a niche sport globally, whereas Leagueball has a better chance of other States, in particular in the USA & Carribean of seeing it played to a fairy large extent, as rugby ppl have admitted. There is no way that the British Establishment were gonna allow Leagueball to become popular.

I have a grasp of the basics.

I played at Mansfield Marksman in a curtain raiser when I was a kid. I know all about Runcorn Highfield and how they went on one of the longest losing streaks in the game. I know that London have been through a bunch of different names and were once owned by Richard Branson. I know the story of the Sheffield Eagles pretty intimately.

I think your hinted suggestion of RL failing to take advantage of expansion opportunities is total BS. Rugby League has tried to expand to South Wales a few times, it didn't work because no one in RL had the money.

Rugby league, like football, has always lead a pretty much hand to mouth existence. But even the massive popularity of football never generated very much profits. Most of the gate receipts went on players wages and paying for upkeep of the stadiums.

There was pretty much no chance of real expansion in RL. The demand wasn't there. In Yorkshire, Lancs, Cumbria and Hull people took to the game in a big way. But that hasn't happened anywhere else.

I see you're trialling my suggested name there. Like it

Treize, been suggested b4, ay, go with it. Sounds good.

Drop Super League and call it the European Treize League (ETL), Sky can then include points scorers and appearances etc. before 1996 on their stats. Peter Sterling and the guys call it the NRL even though it wasn't the NRL until 1998, when referring to the league prior to '98. They say that K Irvine is the top try scorer ever in the NRL.

If the name were ever to change, (which thank the Gods, it isn't) I think it should be a total change, the simple Code 13, is good but I really like "Bulldog" as it reminds of the game we played as kids and RL is similar except ye' have to get a ball to the other end aswell, lmao!

some one at work asked me the other day what the difference was between super league and rugby league.
when i explained it he still didn't get it
"so the rhinos and giants etc play super league and batley and dewsbury and bradford (next year) play rugby league?"

Couldn't you use the analogy of Premier League and Football?

You couldn't have explained it very well then!

If they understand Man Utd play football in the PL and Leeds Utd play football in the Football League, it's surely not a hard concept?

Ots a norvun thing