Leeds United draw biggest Championship TV audience for six years in record-breaking start to new EFL season - Yorkshire Post 8/8/23

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Leeds United's game against Cardiff City Sky's most-watched Championship game outside of the play-offs since 2017 as the new Football League saw bumper crowds across the divisions.

By Stuart Rayner

Over half a million supporters were at the opening weekend, with three of the top five gates at Yorkshire grounds.

With the Premier League not starting until this coming weekend, the second, third and fourth tiers took the spotlight on an opening weekend which started at Hillsborough for Sheffield Wednesday versus Southampton and ended with the biggest crowd of the lot as 43,000 were at Sunderland's televised game with Ipswich Town.

The 543,168 aggregate attendance for 35 matches was the biggest opening weekend gate of the century, up 20.7 per cent on last season.

Yorkshire clubs more than played their part with 36,368 at Elland Road, 29,359 watching Middlesbrough v Millwall – the only fixture in the top five not shown live on television – and 28,558 witnessing Sheffield Wednesday's return to the Championship.

Sunday's early kick-off between Leicester City and Coventry City was the third-best attended game of the weekend (31,763).

Sky's four televised matches drew an average of 631,000 viewers, up 77 per cent on last season's figure. The peak viewing for Leeds' game was close to a million.

Viewing figures for the first Soccer Saturday since the retirement of iconic host Jeff Stelling, were also up 50 per cent on last season's opening weekend.

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