The Price of Football: How much does it cost to escape the Championship?
How much does it cost to escape the Championship? We ran the numbers to see which teams are best equipped to make a push for the Premier League.
We ran the numbers to determine which teams are realistically equipped to challenge for promotion to the Premier League this season.
The Championship is often heralded as the ‘best league in the world’ by fans of the 24 teams within it.
More games. Passionate fanbases. Affordable tickets. No VAR. Fewer instances of teams ‘parking the bus’.
If you haven’t experienced it, you’re missing out.
It’s also one of the least predictable leagues in the world. Several teams often start the season with genuine aspirations of promotion.
Some expect to finish in the top two. Many more believe they can at least break into the play-offs, finish strong, and win that Wembley final worth £200 million.
And remember, the play-offs have been extended to SIX teams this year, so a top-eight finish is all that’s required to qualify.
It could be argued that any team has the potential to enjoy a particularly good season, secure a play-off place and reach the promised land of the Premier League.
But is that actually true? Is the Championship really as competitive as everyone says? Or is that an urban myth perpetuated by the media?
Perhaps, in reality, it’s just another league where the richest teams are most likely to succeed.
We ran the numbers to discover how much money is typically required to escape the Championship, how often the financial underdogs are promoted, and which teams are best equipped to challenge in 2026/27.
How much does it cost to get promoted?
Using data from Capology, we evaluated how much each of the Championship’s last 30 promoted teams spent on transfers in that season, as well as their annual player wage bills (excluding bonuses).
Capology also adjusts these figures based on inflation, giving us a solid idea of how much Championship teams typically need to spend to secure promotion.
Here are the figures.
| 2025-26 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Coventry | £8,100,000 | £8,100,000 | 15th | £17,800,000 | £17,800,000 | 13th | NO | ||
| Ipswich | £56,000,000 | £56,000,000 | 1st | £29,600,000 | £29,600,000 | 4th | YES | ||
| Hull (6th) | £600,000 | £630,000 | 22nd | £22,800,000 | £22,800,000 | 7th | NO | ||
| 2024-25 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Leeds | £29,200,000 | £29,200,000 | 2nd | £36,800,000 | £36,800,000 | 1st | YES | ||
| Burnley | £48,900,000 | £48,900,000 | 1st | £31,700,000 | £31,700,000 | 2nd | YES | ||
| Sunderland (4th) | £10,600,000 | £10,600,000 | 10th | £15,600,000 | £15,600,000 | 14th | NO | ||
| 2023-24 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Leicester | £39,700,000 | £41,200,000 | 1st | £58,200,000 | £60,400,000 | 1st | YES | ||
| Ipswich | £4,200,000 | £4,400,000 | 14th | £14,300,000 | £14,800,000 | 14th | NO | ||
| Southampton (4th) | £19,400,000 | £20,100,000 | 4th | £39,900,000 | £41,400,000 | 2nd | YES | ||
| 2022-23 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Burnley | £34,400,000 | £36,900,000 | 1st | £25,900,000 | £28,000,000 | 2nd | YES | ||
| Sheffield United | £4,100,000 | £4,400,000 | 7th | £17,500,000 | £18,800,000 | 6th | YES | ||
| Luton Town (3rd) | £1,900,000 | £2,000,000 | 10th | £8,600,000 | £9,200,000 | 20th | NO | ||
| 2021-22 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Fulham | £19,800,000 | £22,700,000 | 1st | £40,200,000 | £46,000,000 | 1st | YES | ||
| Bournemouth | £7,500,000 | £8,600,000 | 4th | £35,000,000 | £40,100,000 | 2nd | YES | ||
| Nottingham Forest (4th) | £800,000 | £900,000 | 13th | £19,200,000 | £22,000,000 | 5th | NO | ||
| 2020-21 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Norwich City | £9,900,000 | £12,200,000 | 2nd | £27,800,000 | £34,400,000 | 3rd | YES | ||
| Watford | £0 | £0 | 19th | £33,400,000 | £41,300,000 | 2nd | YES | ||
| Brentford (3rd) | £6,600,000 | £8,200,000 | 4th | £15,200,000 | £18,800,000 | 9th | NO | ||
| 2019-20 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Leeds | £0 | £0 | 23rd | £19,700,000 | £25,000,000 | 6th | NO | ||
| West Bromwich Albion | £18,600,000 | £23,600,000 | 4th | £23,700,000 | £30,000,000 | 3rd | YES | ||
| Fulham (4th) | £29,200,000 | £37,000,000 | 2nd | £29,900,000 | £37,900,000 | 2nd | YES | ||
| 2018-19 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Norwich | £4,900,000 | £6,300,000 | 12th | £16,100,000 | £20,600,000 | 10th | YES | ||
| Sheffield United | £6,000,000 | £7,700,000 | 10th | £10,200,000 | £13,100,000 | 17th | NO | ||
| Aston Villa (5th) | £17,200,000 | £22,000,000 | 4th | £37,200,000 | £47,600,000 | 1st | YES | ||
| 2017-18 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Wolves | £22,200,000 | £28,900,000 | 3rd | £23,400,000 | £30,500,000 | 6th | NO | ||
| Cardiff City | £11,400,000 | £14,800,000 | 11th | £17,000,000 | £22,100,000 | 14th | NO | ||
| Fulham (3rd) | £17,600,000 | £22,900,000 | 5th | £15,900,000 | £20,700,000 | 12th | NO | ||
| 2016-17 | Promoted teams | Transfer spend | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Wage bill | Adjusted for inflation | Rank | Parachute payments? | |
| Newcastle | £57,400,000 | £76,500,000 | 2nd | £37,200,000 | £49,600,000 | 1st | YES | ||
| Brighton | £7,900,000 | £10,500,000 | 12th | £14,900,000 | £19,800,000 | 11th | NO | ||
| Huddersfield (5th) | £4,000,000 | £5,300,000 | 16th | £9,400,000 | £12,500,000 | 19th | NO |
Transfer spend
The mean transfer spend among promoted teams, after adjusting for inflation, was £19 million. The median was £11.4 million.
These figures are lower than the amounts actually spent, since undisclosed transfer fees aren’t counted by Capology. Our methodology also ignores money spent in previous seasons.
We have used gross spend rather than net spend to evaluate investment in playing squads, rather than a club’s ability to generate transfer funds.
The lowest spenders were Hull City last season, who were promoted despite a transfer embargo preventing them from buying new players.
Luton Town are another recent example of a club promoted with a shoestring budget. In their 2022/23 promotion season, they signed Carlton Morris for a club-record fee of around £1.5 million. But the rest of their recruits were free transfers, loans or bargain-basement signings.
Player wages
The mean annual wage bill among the last 30 promoted teams was £28.2 million (≈ £542,000 per week). The median was £26.5 million (≈ £509,000 per week). These figures include inflation adjustments once again.
There are several examples of teams getting promoted with wage bills far lower than that. These include Luton in 2022/23, Hull last season, and even last season’s champions Coventry City.
Coventry were the best team by far, finishing the season with 95 points, but their £17.8 million wage bill only ranked as 13th-highest in the league.
Who is financially equipped to challenge for promotion?
Based on Capology’s figures, only a handful of teams are financially equipped to fight for promotion this season.
If we assume it takes a transfer spend of at least £19 million to get promoted, a pool of eight teams emerges.
The three relegated teams, West Ham (£180m), Wolves (£134.2m) and Burnley (£115.7m), all spent significantly more than that last season.
While they’ll have to adapt to the financial impact of relegation, they’ll each receive an estimated £53.2 million in Premier League parachute payments to help with that.
Southampton, Wrexham, Norwich, Birmingham and Middlesbrough all spent over £19m last term too.
Meanwhile, there are five Championship clubs with annual wage bills higher than the £28.2 million averaged among promoted clubs.
These are West Ham, Wolves, Burnley, Southampton and Sheffield United.
How will the new SCR rules affect Championship clubs?
Championship clubs used to be governed by Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), which limited them to losses of £39 million over a rolling three-year period.
On 1 July 2026, these rules were replaced by Squad Cost Rules (SCR), which limit clubs to spending 85% of their revenue on player and manager costs. However, they are also given a flexible equity top-up allowance of £33m over three years (up to a maximum of £15m a season).
It’s too soon to tell whether these new rules will impact transfer activity in the Championship this summer.
However, that seems unlikely given the spending limits haven’t changed too drastically. The teams with the lowest revenues will be the worst affected, but that was the case with PSR as well.
You can click here to learn more about the impact of SCR in the Premier League.
Do you need a top-six budget to get promoted?
Our calculations suggest there are nine teams in the Championship likely to spend as much as promoted teams usually do, either on transfer fees or wages.
These are:
- Birmingham
- Burnley
- Middlesbrough
- Norwich
- Sheffield United
- Southampton
- West Ham
- Wolves
- Wrexham
However, we also discovered that plenty of financial underdogs have secured promotion to the Premier League in recent times.
Of the last 30 teams promoted to the Premier League, only 20 were among the top six highest spenders for transfer fees or wages (66%).
That means one team, on average, gets promoted to the Premier League each season without a top-six budget.
Meanwhile, only 14 of these 30 teams were receiving parachute payments from the Premier League. An even better omen for low-budget Championship teams.
All 24 second-tier clubs can be inspired by last season’s Coventry side, who were crowned champions despite only spending large sums on Kaine Kesler-Hayden (£3.5m) and Luke Woolfenden (≈ £4m, undisclosed) and Jahnoah Markelo (£4.3m).
Coventry had been slowly improving their squad with similarly modest spends in previous seasons, until they were ready to win the league at a canter under the guidance of Frank Lampard.
Hull City, last season’s play-off winners, could serve as even bigger inspiration. Despite only avoiding relegation by goal difference in 2024/25 and being banned from spending money on new players, they’re now preparing to compete in the Premier League.
Ipswich Town (in 2023/24) and Luton Town (in 2022/23) also deserve mentions for reaching the Premier League just a year after being promoted from League One.
The Tractor Boys ranked as the 14th-highest spenders for transfer fees and wages that year. Luton were 10th-highest spenders on transfers, and 20th on wages.
Unfortunately, the Hatters then suffered back-to-back relegations, proving that Premier League parachute payments don’t guarantee success. Leicester City completed the same double-drop last year.
So, it’s not how much money you spend in the Championship; it’s how well you spend it. That’s what determines success.
There’s plenty of evidence to back that up, and that’s without the bonus of the play-offs being extended to SIX teams.
An eighth-place finish and a good run in those extra games is now all that’s required to reach the Premier League.
Our research suggests that’s far from a wildly unrealistic target for any Championship club. With a savvy recruitment strategy and a strong tactical identity, the sky’s the limit.
Perhaps that’s why so many Championship fans call it the ‘best league in the world’.