The Championship is at once a boulevard of broken dreams or a highway to redemption

The English Championship is to the Premier League what Puma is to adidas. Well regarded in its own right — at last count the third most-watched league in Europe — it will always exist in the shadow of its bigger brother, writes Brendan O'Brien.

Over 11,000,000 people clicked through the turnstiles to watch the Championship unfold in the 2016-17 season. That’s more than La Liga attracted in Spain. Or Italy’s Serie A, or Ligue 1 in France. Total revenues were calculated by Deloitte at £720m and the English Football League’s current TV deal equates to £90m a year, the bulk of it going to the second-tier clubs.