Football League Championship

Football League Championship

Country	England
Other club(s) from	Wales
Founded	2004–present 1992–2004 (as Division One) 1892–1992 (as Division Two)
Number of teams	24
Levels on pyramid	2
Promotion to	Premier League
Relegation to	League One
Domestic cup(s)	FA Cup
League cup(s)	Football League Cup
Current champions	Cardiff City (2012–13)
Most championships	Sunderland and Reading (2 titles)
TV partners	Sky Sports BBC (Highlights Only)
Website	Official site
2013–14 Football League Championship

The Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short, or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship reasons^[1]) is the second-highest division overall in the English football league system after the Premier League. Each year, the top finishing teams in the Championship are promoted to the Premier League, and the lowest finishing teams are relegated.

The Football League Championship, which was introduced for the 2004–05 season, was previously known as the Football League First Division (1992-2004), and before that was known as Division Two (1892-1992). The winners of the Championship receive the Football League Championship trophy, the same trophy as the old First Division champions were handed prior to the Premier League's inception in 1992.

The Championship is the wealthiest non-top flight football division in the world and the seventh richest division in Europe.^[2] The average match attendance for the 2011-12 season was 17,738, which also makes it the most-watched secondary league in Europe.^[3]

At present (2013-14 season), Ipswich Town hold the longest tenure in the Championship, last being out of the division in the 2001–02 season when they were relegated from the Premier League.

History

For history before 2004, see Football League First Division after 1993 and Football League Second Division before that year

In its inaugural season of 2004–05, the Football League Championship announced a total attendance (including postseason) of 9.8 million, which it said was the fourth highest total attendance for a European football division, behind the FA Premier League (12.88m), Spain's La Liga (11.57m) and Germany's Bundesliga (10.92m), but beating Italy's Serie A (9.77m) and France's Ligue 1 (8.17m).^[4][5][6] The total figures were aided somewhat by the presence of 24 clubs, compared to 20 clubs in both Serie A and Ligue 1, and 18 in the Bundesliga. A major factor to the competition's success comes from television revenue.^{[citation needed]}

On 30 September 2009, Coca-Cola announced they would end their sponsorship deal with the Football League at the end of the 2009–10 season.^[7] On 16 March 2010, npower were announced as the new title sponsors of the Football League, and from the start of the 2010–11 Football League season until the end of the 2012–13 season, the Football League Championship was known as the Npower Championship.^[8]

On 18 July 2013, UK bookmaker Sky Bet announced a new 5-year agreement to sponsor the league.^[1]

Structure of the league

The league comprises 24 teams. Over the course of a season, which runs annually from August to the following May, each team plays twice against the others in the league, once at 'home' and once 'away', resulting in each team competing in 46 games in total. Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. The teams are ranked in the league table by points gained, then goal difference, then goals scored and then their head-to-head record for that season. In the event that two or more teams finish the season equal in all these respects, teams are separated by alphabetical order, unless a promotion, relegation or play-off place (see below) is at stake, when the teams are separated by a play-off game, though this improbable situation has never arisen in all the years the rule has existed.^[9]

At the end of the season, the top two teams and the winner of the Championship play-offs are promoted to the Premier League and the bottom three teams are relegated to Football League One. The Football League Championship play-offs is a knock-out competition for the teams finishing the season in third to sixth place with the winner being promoted to the Premier League. In the play-offs, 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 (home and away). The winners of each semi-final then compete in a single match with the prize being promotion to the Premier League and the Championship play-off trophy.

The three promoted teams are replaced in the division for the next season by the teams finishing in the bottom three in the Premier League and the relegated teams are replaced by the two teams finishing at the top of League One and the winner of the League One play-off final.

Broadcasting rights

UK Television

From 2009 to 2012 Sky Sports had the rights to broadcast 65 live matches, live coverage of both legs of both play off semi finals and the play off final live.^[10] The BBC has the rights to show 10 first choice live games for the regular season as well as the rights to show a highlight show. The deal is on a three year contract and is worth £264m that will mostly be paid by Sky.^[11] Sky Sports will then take exclusive live rights to the Football League from 2013, having signed a three-year deal worth £195m, representing a 26% reduction in revenue from the previous joint deal between Sky and BBC.^[12] The new deal will include 75 live league games, all the play-off matches, 15 League Cup ties (including both semi-finals and the final) and selected Johnstone's Paint Trophy matches. Sky will also have highlights packages, with the free-to-air rights yet to be decided.

Radio

Local radio stations with a local football team in The Championship usually offer audio coverage of every live game. BBC Sport holds exclusive national rights to broadcast Championship matches live to the whole of the United Kingdom; most matches are broadcast on local BBC radio stations for the area of their respective teams while some headline matches are broadcast on national stations, either 5 Live or 5 Live Sports Extra under their 5 Live Sport banner. Most matches broadcast on BBC radio are also broadcast online to UK users on the BBC website.

talkSPORT also has rights to broadcast each of the Football League Play Off Finals.

International

• Australia – Setanta Sports Australia broadcasts live Championship matches every weekend
• Brazil – ESPN Brasil has exclusive rights to broadcast live two Championship matches every week.
• Bulgaria – Diema broadcasts live two Championship matches every week.
• Canada – Unavailable.
• Germany – sportdigital.tv broadcasts one or two games every week.
• India and the subcontinent, Ten Action Plus broadcasts some of the matches in Non-HD.
• Indonesia - CPI TV has exclusive rights to broadcast live in a dozent matches
• Italy – Sportitalia had exclusive rights to broadcast live one match a week and highlights show between 2005 and 2012.
• Mexico – SKY Sports Mexico has exclusive rights to broadcast live two matches.
• New Zealand - Sommet Sports has exclusive rights to broadcast all matches live or on delay.
• Sweden – TV4 Sport shows one or two matches a week usually including a 3pm kick off on the Saturday.
• France – LequipeTV shows one match a week
• Norway – Viasat Fotball shows one or two matches a week.
• Romania - GSP TV shows two live matches per week.
• United States - beIN Sport broadcast one or two matches a week .

• Asia – (except Japan and Korea) most games are broadcast by Goal TV.

• Streaming – Betfair and Bet365 both broadcast matches internationally. Betfair notes that the territories to which they are able to stream events varies from sport to sport.^[13] Bet365 notes that some events are not permitted to stream within the host country.^[14]

Stadiums and locations

Barnsley

Birmingham City

Blackburn Rovers

Blackpool

Bolton Wanderers

Bournemouth

Brighton & Hove Albion

Burnley

Charlton Athletic

Derby County

Doncaster Rovers

Huddersfield

Ipswich Town

Leeds United

Leicester City

Middlesbrough

Millwall

Nottingham Forest

QPR

Reading

Sheffield Wednesday

Watford

Wigan

Yeovil Town

Locations of teams in the 2013-14 Football League Championship

Previous seasons

League champions, runners-up and play-off finalists

¹ When Norwich City gained promotion to the Premier League they were the first team to be relegated to, relegated from, promoted to and promoted from the Championship.

For past winners at this level before 2004, see List of winners of English Football League Championship and predecessors

Relegated teams (from Championship to League One)

Relegated teams (from Premier League to Championship)

Promoted teams (from League One to Championship)

Top scorers

Season	Top scorer	Club	Goals
2004–05	Nathan Ellington	Wigan Athletic	24
2005–06	Marlon King	Watford	21
2006–07	Jamie Cureton	Colchester United	23
2007–08	Sylvan Ebanks-Blake	Plymouth Argyle/Wolverhampton Wanderers	23
2008–09	Sylvan Ebanks-Blake	Wolverhampton Wanderers	25
2009–10	Peter Whittingham	Cardiff City	20
	Nicky Maynard	Bristol City
2010–11	Danny Graham	Watford	24
2011–12	Rickie Lambert	Southampton	27
2012–13	Glenn Murray	Crystal Palace	30

Top Transfers

Rank	Season	Player	To	From	Price	ref.
1	2012–13	Jordan Rhodes	Blackburn Rovers	Huddersfield Town	£8,000,000	[15]
2	2013–14	Charlie Austin	QPR	Burnley	£4,000,000	[16]

See also

• Football League Championship Manager of the Month
• List of English football club owners
• List of attendance figures at domestic professional sports leagues — Championship attendance in a worldwide context

References

External links

• Championship official site Football League
• Championship league statistics British Footie
• Championship Fan site The Championship Fan Site
• Championship Stadiums The Championship Stadiums