Coca-Cola Championship
March 15th, 2008
The Football League Championship was introduced for the 2004-2005 season. It was previously known as the Football League First Division. According to Deloitte, in 2004-05 it was the richest non-top flight football division in the world, and the sixth richest division in the world.
After analysis of the 2006-2007 season only 13 points separated the top 6 teams.
The championship is truly an incredible league. While all the top leagues from all over the world have potential winners, this league cannot predict nothing. No team has absolutely any advantage before the first 10 rounds. By end the of the season it could be last season's struglers, who top the spot and the team which has qualified from the lower division - League One, could bounce back. In 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 Primera división (11.57m) and Germany's Bundesliga (10.92m), but beating Italy's Serie A (9.77m) and France's Ligue 1 (8.17m). 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.
The television rights for the Football League Championship are currently held by Sky Sports. Sky Sports will hold the exclusive rights until the 2009-2010 season. Highlights of Championship matches and goals of league one and league two matches are shown by ITV on The Championship. From 2009-2010 Sky Sports will show 65 live matches. The BBC will show 10 live games a season and has 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.
The standings according to 11th of March are -
1 Bristol City 38 18 13 7 45 42 3 67 2 Stoke City 38 18 12 8 61 49 12 66 3 Watford 37 17 12 8 57 43 14 63 4 West Bromwich Albion 36 18 8 10 72 43 29 62 5 Charlton Athletic 38 15 11 12 53 45 8 56 6 Hull City 37 15 11 11 46 40 6 56 7 Plymouth Argyle 38 15 10 13 49 39 10 55 8 Burnley 38 14 13 11 51 49 2 55 9 Ipswich Town 37 14 11 12 54 48 6 53 10 Crystal Palace 38 13 15 10 42 37 5 54 11 Wolverhampton Wanderers 36 13 12 11 36 38 -2 51 12 Blackpool 39 11 15 13 53 52 1 48 13 Cardiff City 36 12 12 12 43 42 1 48 14 Queens Park Rangers 38 12 12 14 40 54 -14 48 15 Sheffield United 37 11 14 12 39 41 -2 47 16 Preston North End 39 13 8 18 38 43 -5 47 17 Barnsley 37 11 13 13 42 52 -10 46 18 Norwich City 38 12 10 16 35 46 -11 46 19 Southampton 38 11 12 15 49 61 -12 45 20 Coventry City 37 12 7 18 39 52 -13 43 21 Sheffield Wednesday 36 12 6 18 38 43 -5 42 22 Leicester City 38 9 14 15 34 35 -1 41 23 Scunthorpe United 37 9 11 17 35 53 -18 38 24 Colchester United 37 6 14 17 49 63 -14 32
