The 12 biggest clubs in the EFL Championship named and ranked by AI | OneFootball

We asked ChatGPT to answer one of the most contentious questions in all of football.

The Championship: home to some of the best footballing action every single season in England, as well as some of the most popular clubs.

The second tier of English football may not have the glamour and the riches that come along with other divisions throughout world football, but entertainment and passion is something that it is never short of. That enthusiasm for the sport is what brings all supporters together, and yet also divides them; it's a majestically strange thing.

In modern-day football, one of the main things that supporters disagree on is the 'size' of their clubs. It's the footballing equivalent of the back-and-forth playground debate of 'My dad would beat up your dad', and, because it's not necessarily quantifiable, at least not easy to, it's hard to find any form of overwhelming consensus, especially in the Championship.

Since us mere mortals can't seem to figure it out, FLW has put one of the most pressing questions in the sport to ChatGPT: of the 2025/26 cohort, who are the 12 biggest clubs in the Championship?

It took into consideration each team's financial strength (notably parachute payments), average attendances and stadium sizes, historical stature, and commercial or fan-based influence. This is what it said.

Two things cannot be doubted when it comes to the Red Dragons. Firstly, their financial might. Expected to challenge the recently relegated Premier League sides for transfer targets in this summer window, Wrexham have the ability to be among the biggest spenders in the division this term.

They dwarfed some top-flight clubs in commercial revenue while they were in League Two, and that has helped them to get to their second undoubtable point: their trajectory. It's been an upward one for some time now, and will probably continue to be once they get started with life in the Championship.

A fourth successive promotion doesn't seem on the cards, but their continual growth in popularity, performance and spending puts them 12th on this list.

11 Stoke City

Stoke are a club with Premier League pedigree. They spent pretty much a decade in the top flight before being relegated back down to the Championship at the end of the 2017/18 campaign.

On top of their strong links with the highest level of English football, the Potters also have a major trophy to their name. They won the League Cup back in 1972 - a feat that not many EFL clubs have on their records.

They've found it hard to recapture their best moments since they returned to the Championship, but they're a well-supported side with a strong history behind them.

Albion have a similar recent connection with the Premier League to the team above them on this list. Their years in the first division has led to a loyal 25,000 Baggies, on average, turning up to watch their team at every game at the Hawthorns. That was the ninth highest in the Championship last season.

Despite some financial issues in recent times, West Brom have always remained a very competitive side in the second tier, often challenging for one of the top six spots.

9 Bristol City

Last season's sixth-placed side come in at ninth on this list, a position in the Championship that the Robins would have snapped your hand off for over the majority of the past 10 years.

The highest they'd climbed in the English footballing pyramid since they won League One back in 2015 was eighth, and that was seven years ago.

The Robins don't have an illustrious history of competing at the highest level of the sport in this country, but, according to ChatGPT, their high incomes push them up these rankings.

A consistent play-off challenger over recent season, Boro have been picked by AI as the eighth-biggest team of those in the 25/26 Championship.

Again, a strong cohort of loyal supporters who turn up at the Riverside at a rate of just over 25,000 per week, as per last season's stats, is attributed as a reason behind their spot on the list. Their potential to grow is noted too.

Boro have made a lot of investments in up-and-coming players of late, hence ChatGPT thinking that they can go on to bigger and better things.

Norwich's future is looking brighter now that Liam Manning is leading his hometown club. They also have quite a strong pedigree behind them too. They have two League Cup trophies at Carrow Road, plus they featured in the UEFA Cup just over 30 years ago after finishing third in the old First Division.

Any club that has that sort of background can quite comfortably be considered a big team in the Championship, although they may not be best pleased to see where AI has put their rivals Ipswich Town.

Just try to forget about the absolute mess that is the Owls at this moment in time. Focus in on its home at Hillsborough, the supporters who fill it, the history behind Wednesday and its name. There's just a lot of big club energy.

Now that Sunderland have been promoted to the Premier League, at the expense of Wednesday's arch rivals, they hold the top spot for stadium capacity in the Championship - a big reason behind ChatGPT's selection of them being the sixth biggest in the division.

In the early stages of the 2022/23 campaign, Coventry almost certainly wouldn't have featured this high among the list of the biggest Championship outfits. They were potentially heading for relegation, but, by the end of the term, they were a penalty shootout away from being a Premier League team.

They ultimately failed to get over the line, but that ended up being the first of two top-six finishes in the past three seasons, and in the middle of that was an FA Cup semi-final appearance in which they were desperately unlucky to lose out to Manchester United.

Because they haven't been helped by parachute payments, and have still been so competent both on and off the pitch, it makes them a top five club in terms of size in the English second tier, as per AI.

Blades supporters would much rather they weren't on this list at all, but the aforementioned play-off final loss to Sunderland has kept them shackled to the second tier for at least one more term.

They've spent three of their last six campaigns in the Premier League. They finished ninth in their first season back in the top flight and have a good chance to get back there soon because of the quality in their squad and the parachute payments available to them.

3 Southampton

The club's new home, St Mary's, may not carry as many evocative memories for some as The Dell did during its heyday, but it plays host to what has been one of the top 25 clubs in the country for the majority of the time since the Premier League's inception.

They've had a troubled time with their last two attempts to remain in England's first division of football, but have established themselves as one of the premier second-tier clubs when they've been in that space.