Assessing the pros and cons of Championship and League 1 merger for 2026

It’s official: Championship and League 1 will merge to become a 21-team competition in 2026 after another major restructuring of rugby league’s professional game.

Clubs have overwhelmingly voted in favour of bringing together the two leagues, with a heavily-reported conference league system failing to come to fruition in the end.

But it does mean that things are changing again – but are they changing for the better? Here are the big pros and cons with the system and the new jumbo league: and what we think could happen next.

Pro: No more League 1

In reality, rugby league just wasn’t strong enough to support three professional tiers. And for the traditional clubs that were in there, they weren’t really seeing any benefits or opportunities to grow.

One of the major complaints among owners and chief executives at that level of the sport was that they were in a division that was primarily used as a breeding ground for expansion clubs. Realistically, the door should be shut on that for some time now to allow this structure to settle.

It will also give those clubs in League 1 who believe they have plenty to offer a chance to prove it by competing against the better sides outside of Super League, albeit on a sporadic basis.

Con: Change – again

Remember the last plan? A step-by-step process to get to a point where Championship and League 1 would be 12 clubs each by the start of 2026? Well, we didn’t even get to the end of that idea before changing it all up again.

It’s been said a million times, but now the structure has been changed again, there simply has to be a period of several years where things are not tweaked. The club CEO statements all supporting this should be held firmly on the record just in case there’s a panic and a reshuffling of the deckchairs again in a few years.

They have backed this – and there’s every possibility it could work. They have to stick to it.

Con: Competition integrity with an imbalanced fixture list

In reality, a 21-team league was always going to get imbalances attached to it unless you played 20 or 40 matches. So whatever format was settled upon within that, there were going to be issues.

But the prospect of teams playing certain opponents home and away and others not at all – as reported by All Out Rugby League – does not fill you with confidence on the whole. There are positives – we’ll get to those – but it’s hard not to imagine a scenario where one club makes the play-offs having had a far easier fixture list than the other.

Expect debate and controversy on this front.

Pro: Fewer blowouts – hopefully

However, one thing that does appear to be a positive with this format is that with teams playing those who were around them the previous year, you will get a lot more close-run games.

Had you been faced with the prospect of teams from League 1 playing teams at the upper end of the Championship in 2025, it is not inconceivable you would have had a raft of uncompetitive matches.

That shouldn’t be the case, and should mean as many games in the newly-merged league are as competitive as possible. Which can only be a good thing for entertainment purposes and unpredictability. We’re a fan of that.

Con: The timing of the changes

It’s almost not really surprising anymore that these sorts of huge decisions are being taken mere weeks before the end of a huge end to the season.

Some Championship and League 1 clubs had already started to budget for the extra games in the Super 8s, which have now been pulled at short notice. It’s not life-changing sums of money, but it’s still extra home games and a loss of revenue that clubs will have to bridge.

Player recruitment had already started with some clubs preparing for life in a specific division. That will be impacted.

Will this merger be the solution to the Championship and League 1’s burning issues? Perhaps, if there are key problems solved alongside it. But the timing of it all does leave you feeling a bit flat.

Here’s hoping it works.

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