Express & Star

Comment: Championship entertainment is being undervalued

There is a well-worn cliché in football that the Premier League is ‘the best league in the world’.

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Managers and players use it as an excuse after defeats, broadcasters use it as an advertising tool, and indoctrinated supporters even use it on radio phone-ins.

But clichés are supposed to be true. The Premier League is probably the league with the highest quality football on show, but it is not even the most entertaining in this country.

Fixtures between the top five and the bottom half have become monotonous one-sided affairs; training ground matches between attack and defence.

We are nearly a third of the way through the season and three teams are still unbeaten, while seven are operating at under a point per game.

The most entertaining league in this country, and perhaps the world, surely is the Championship, where anyone can actually beat anyone, and does so with regularity.

In the Premier League, the team in sixth is 12 points behind the leaders. In the Championship, it’s the team in 15th. And that division should be more stretched having played more games.

Television viewing figures are beginning to reflect this trend. Games involving the big six will always attract big figures, with normally more than a million tuning in.

But this season, just 447,900 watched Cardiff’s 2-1 defeat to Burnley, and just 471,700 watched a Monday night clash between Southampton and Burnley. In the Premier League.

That is not significantly higher than the Championship. Last season, an average of 395,500 tuned in for Sunderland’s games in the second tier and an average of 361,583 watched Leeds.

The difference in viewing figures is nowhere near as large as the difference in monetary payments.

Premier League clubs are given £47.1million for domestic TV rights plus an extra £1.13m for every time they are shown live beyond their 10th game on television AND an extra £1.9m per place in the table.

Last season, Albion received the lowest amount of domestic TV money in the top tier, but it was still nearly £50m.

Championship clubs, meanwhile, are currently given just £2.3m from Sky each season plus a paltry £100,000 every time a home games is picked for live coverage.

If it’s an away game, they receive just £10,000 – barely enough to cover one of their player’s wages for that week.

Half of Albion's league games have been shown on television. (AMA)

Under a new five-year deal which the clubs are yet to agree to, they would receive £2.95m each and a slight increase in appearance fees, although that deal is for more live games.

However, interest in watching the Premier League is on the wane, while interest in watching a competitive Championship is ramping up.

No wonder 19 clubs in the second tier believe the EFL should have negotiated a better deal for their broadcast rights.

It’s painfully obvious disparity between the Premier League and the Championship deserves to be significantly closed.

Championship clubs are quite rightly standing up for what they believe their product is worth.

Because right now, the ordeal that many supporters are put through, is simply not worth the money.

Albion have no match on any of the next five Saturdays because so many of their games have been moved for television.

In the next few weeks supporters are being asked to go to make trips to both Ipswich and Sheffield on a Friday night. And the Baggies will receive just £20,000 for the trouble.

Televised fixtures can also have an impact on attendances. Albion’s lowest gate so far this season was a midweek match against Bristol City broadcast live on Sky.

But as long as they’re given five weeks’ notice, clubs are obligated to move their fixtures for TV.

Half-empty stadia, in turn, makes the product the EFL are trying to sell less attractive. It’s a snowball effect that detrimentally impacts the league.

As it stands, the Championship is being hugely undervalued, and Sky are making money while wreaking havoc for the thousands of fans who are key to the very product they sell.