By combing all of the team’s stadium capacity in the Championship, it will hold a total of 717,528 fans. Newcastle has the biggest stadium capacity in this league during the 201617 season, holding a total of 52,404 thousand supporters. The oldest stadium within the Championship is Preston North Ends Deepdale which has been in operation since 1874. The newest formed stadium within the league is Rotherhams New York Stadium which was built in 2012.

The main coverage for the English Championship mainly comes from Sky. How many live championship football on tv games are shown each year? Sky now have the rights to broadcast 65 games and also have live coverage of both legs of the play- off semi finals and final playoff games. As a result of Sky coverage in terms of money for Championships clubs who aren’t receiving parachute payment from being relegated from Premier League, they can expect to receive about £5 million per season in solidarity payments, more than double from the previous deal.

Recently a deal has been reached with the football league and channel 5 to show footage, including every single goal from all matches in the football league set-up. This deal was struck on May 2015.

Internationally the Championship is viewed worldwide with many broadcasters taken up right to show live games or even highlights to games every week of a season.

• Central Europe is well covered each country has its own broadcaster which shows a large amount of live games in the championship.
• Australia and its main broadcaster is beIN Sports
• Brazil- Espn is the main provider showing 2 live games per week
• India and the Subcontinent- Ten Actions provides games in Non-HD
• Indonesia- CPI TV has exclusive rights to broadcast live matches
• Japan- J Sport is the main provider
• Korea- SBS Sport is the main provider
• Mexico- Sky Sports has exclusive rights to show 2 live matches
• New Zealand- The main provider is Sky Sports
• United States- beIN sports shows 2 matches per week.

The Championship has a lot of radio coverage with local stations usually covering the local teams who play in the Championship.

BBC Sports holds the exclusive right to broadcast championship matches throughout the whole of the UK. Most Matches are broadcasted by local stations in the areas of their respective teams or on national stations such as radio 5 and 5 live.

Talksport also has the rights to broadcast each of the Football League Play-Offs finals.

The Championship has one of the most exciting ends to a football season in the form of the playoffs. As Clubs who find themselves outside the top two automatic places, can still get themselves up through the playoff so  they strive to get into the top 6.

In the playoffs, the third-placed team plays against the sixth-placed team and the fourth-placed team plays against the fifth-placed team in two-legged semi -finals.  The winners of each semi-final then compete in a single match with the chance to get promoted to the Premier League.

The Championship play-off final is considered to be the richest game of football in the world. The club that goes on to win it could stand to make almost £200 million. This is because of the £8.3 billion television deal, along with global broadcasting profit and also from Premier League sponsorship deals.  In terms of money, this game earns more for a team than winning any major European trophy such as the Champions League.

The Championship is the wealthiest non-top flight football division in the world and the seventh richest division in Europe. The total market value for the Championship is estimated at £829.54 million.

With Newcastle United having the biggest market value in the league with £107.31m, what we can take from this is that Newcastle are the richest within the league.

Whereas Rotherham United is at the bottom in terms of having the least market value in the league, as they are valued at £10.33 million. Meaning they are considered to be the club with the smallest budget in the Championship.

H3- Most valuable player

Newcastle United is considered to have the most valued player in the league, in a midfielder called Jonjo Shelvey who is valued at £9.35 million. He is tied to the club until 2021.  The value is generated from the potential transfer fee, performance and age.

Wages

The highest paid player in the Championship is Jonjo Shelvey who currently earns £80,000 per week and almost £ 4 million a year. This wage is not common and typically a player in the Championship will earn £10,000 to £20,000 per week.

In a player’s contract, there will be an agreement between the clubs about what kind of bonuses a player will receive. The usual types of bonuses are for winning a game, signing on fee, for scoring a goal or keeping a clean sheet. By having a bonus it can potentially double a players wage.

Wages are also staggered according to the age of the player with the highest earners of football club tending to be at the age of 21 to 30. Also, wages within Championship can be easily dropped if a club gets relegated down to division below them due to contract clauses.

Record transfer

The biggest transfer to be accepted in the Championship came from Tottenham Hotspurs when they completed the transfer of Moussa Sissoko from Newcastle United. The Transfer fee was in the region of £29.75 million.

The Club to spend the most was Wolves who spent in the region of £12.75 million on a player called Helder Costa from Benfica. This transfer happened in the January transfer windows of 2017.

Transfer window

If you combine both transfer windows in the current campaign, the amount of money spent by Championship teams was in the region of £287,450,000.

Cash Prizes

For teams who manage to win promotion, they are likely to earn at least £130 million and that could potentially rise to £230 million if they manage to avoid relegation.

Players Records

The player to score the most goals in one season in the Championship was Glenn Murray who managed to score a total of 30 goals during the 2012/2013 season. The player who currently sits top of the goal scoring charts is Chris Wood, who plays for Leeds and he has managed to score 22 goals as of March 14th.

The oldest player to make an appearance in the Championship this season was goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen at the tender age of 41 for Wigan. The youngest player to feature this season was a player called Ryan Sessegnon who made an appearance in the 1-1 draw against Leeds for Fulham.

The Longest serving player in the Championship is a goalkeeper called Carl Ikeme who has being playing for Wolves for almost 14 years.

Sam Hutchinson has the worst discipline record in the Championship so far, he has managed to collect 8 yellow cards and also he has been sent off twice this season.

Fanbase

The two biggest supported teams within the Championship are Newcastle United and Leeds United.