The incredible Premier League prize money on offer if Middlesbrough earn promotion
How much can Boro bag if they return to the top flight?
Middlesbrough’s 2-1 win over Sheffield United fired them to the top of the Championship table, with one hand now firmly on Premier League promotion.
Boro left Bramall Lane with all three points, thanks to first-half goals from Tommy Conway and Riley McGree, rendering Patrick Bamford’s late strike nothing more than a consolation. Kim Hellberg’s side have now won their last six Championship matches and that, coupled with Coventry winning just two of their last eight and none of their last three, has seen Boro reach the summit of the table for the first time since September.
Hellberg is now looking to see the job through and lead the Teessiders back to the Premier League for the first time since 2016/17, but what sort of prize money is on offer if he succeeds?
Championship prize money
Unlike the Premier League or Champions League, whose winners receive substantial payouts that can move the needle for clubs, the difference between places in the Championship is negligible. Instead, it’s an essentially binary prize money system: you either gain access to the Premier League, or you don’t.
That is at least in terms of the big rewards, which we’ll get to shortly. However, there are still payments that Championship clubs receive. For example, per BBC Sport, during the 2024/25 season, Championship clubs received just under £11m, split 50/50 between ‘basic award’ amounts funded by TV deals, and solidarity payments from the Premier League.
Clubs that have been relegated from the Premier League within the last three years also received parachute payments: £49m each for first-year teams, £40m each for second-year teams, and £17m each for third-year teams.
Premier League prize money
As mentioned, the real value is in Premier League promotion. Make it to the top flight, and you unlock the vast riches from major TV deals and per-position prize money that the lower leagues simply cannot match.
Last season’s promoted teams were estimated to be approximately £200m each better off, gaining access to the Premier League’s domestic TV deal worth a staggering £6.7bn across its four-year term. Clubs will also receive centralised commercial fees, facility fees and merit payments and be entitled to possible parachute payments, if they are relegated back to the second tier. But the TV deal alone is believed to be worth an average of £83.75m per team, per season.
Premier League sides can also earn significantly more by finishing higher up the table. For example, champions Liverpool earned £174.9m in prize money last season, while Newcastle United picked up £160.2m for finishing fifth - enough to break them back into the Champions League.
By contrast, Southampton bagged just £109.2m for finishing bottom - still a fortune, but small by Liverpool’s comparison - while Tottenham and Manchester United ended up with £127.8m and £136.2m as they finished 17th and 15th, respectively. Tottenham’s prize fund was boosted by winning the Europa League.
And that raises another important point. While it would be a remarkable achievement, Boro would have the opportunity open to them of Champions League, Europa League and Conference League qualification via league position, opening up whole new revenue streams.
This season, Boro’s only route to the continent would have been by becoming the first second tier side to win a major English domestic cup since Sheffield Wednesday lifted the League Cup in 1991. The 2025/26 FA Cup winners qualify for the Europa League, while the League Cup winners go into the Conference League.
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