The story of the Championship’s new season begins with a change to what happens at the end of it. For decades, the final promotion place went to the winner of a four-team mini-tournament. From 2026-27, six clubs will fight for it, and clubs agreed the change months before the campaign got going.
The division itself is unchanged: 24 clubs, a demanding 46-game schedule and very little room for error. The regular season is due to finish on Saturday, May 1, 2027, with the last round of fixtures.
How the old play-offs worked
Only the top two sides go up automatically. The third spot is settled in the play-offs, which until now took in the teams that finished third to sixth. Third met sixth and fourth met fifth, both over two legs, and the winners played each other at Wembley.
What replaces them
Seventh and eighth place now qualify too. Third and fourth go straight into the semi-finals, which stay two-legged. Everyone else starts earlier, in a one-off quarter-final that DAZN notes was previously coined an “eliminator” round. Fifth hosts eighth and sixth hosts seventh. The two winners then face the third- and fourth-placed teams in the semi-finals, and the survivors meet in a single game at Wembley. If it is level, extra time and penalties decide it.
That makes seven fixtures in all. Sports Illustrated points out that the EFL is borrowing a format the National League has used since 2017, and DAZN says there are no plans to repeat the change in League One or League Two.
A prize worth the trouble
The extra rounds matter because of what waits at the end. There is no large EFL prize for winning the final, as Sports Illustrated explains, but promotion is the jackpot. A typical Championship club receives roughly £11 million ($15 million) in solidarity and broadcast money. Even the bottom club in the Premier League received around £109 million ($147 million) in central payments in 2025-26. Deloitte estimates newly promoted Coventry and Hull could gain at least £210 million ($283 million) across three seasons. If a promoted side goes straight back down, first-year parachute payments are estimated at around £56 million ($76 million).
Not everyone is sold
DAZN’s Ash Rose, a Queens Park Rangers fan, sees the upside plainly. Two more places should give “fresh impetus” to a mid-table that normally has little to play for late in the season. But he also finds something “rather bewildering” about a club finishing eighth and then reaching the Premier League. He notes that last season Millwall finished eighth on 68 points while Sheffield United ended up on 90, and that all six promoted teams in the last two seasons went straight back down.
Whether that worry proves right will not be known until the first eliminators are played, some time after the regular season ends on May 1, 2027.
Sources
- What is the new Championship play-off format for 2026-27? | DAZN News Canada
- 2026–27 Championship Playoffs: Fixtures, Dates, Teams in Contention
