Late season Championship TV money windfall for Huddersfield Town explained

Huddersfield Town fans are feeling one side of being successful this season, the continual rearrangement of fixtures for television. Five of the Terriers’ next seven fixtures will be televised with the remaining two – the last games of the season – also potentially available if Sky decides to air them.

Some fans have reacted badly to the constant movement of games they had planned for and understandably so, but others have asked what the financial benefit to the Terriers is. In a league where finances can be tight and even more so after the Covid season hurt several clubs, any source of income is welcomed. Inconvenient as the rescheduling is it also brings a boost to the balance sheet.

The way TV revenue is split in the Championship is very different to the Premier League. It comes from three sources – the Premier League itself, the EFL, and then on an individual televised match basis. Television money is included by the Premier League in parachute payments, clubs who don’t receive them get around £4.5m as a payment. There is a further payment of £2.5m from the EFL which is made at the end of the season.

On a match-to-match basis, the fee received on top of those payments for a televised game varies per game for each club involved. The value of the payment is determined by several factors including which kick-off time the game is chosen for and who are the home and away sides. Town are banking around £100,000 as the home side, £10,000 when they are away. Over the next five games as an example they will be paid somewhere north of £300,000 for their televised participation.

No small amount all things considered but the finer details are quite difficult to definitively find. Football finance expert Kieran Maguire spoke to