The Championship promotion race is still very much on, but Albion are already guaranteed one title – the club receiving the most money from live TV coverage.

The Seagulls’ fees from Sky for matches being shown live is set to rise to almost £1 million, more if they end up in the play-offs.

As our exclusive table shows, 17 Albion games have been selected this season, up to and including the home game against Bristol City on Saturday April 29.

That is worth £980,000, £100,000 for each of the nine home matches in front of the cameras and £10,000 for each of the eight away fixtures.

Newcastle, leading Albion by a point in the table proper, have been picked 18 times, but 12 of those have been away, reducing their total gain to £720,000.

The Argus:

Albion’s earnings were boosted by another £100,000 yesterday afternoon when their final home game of the season against Bristol City, initially scheduled for 3pm but moved to 5.30pm, attracted live Sky coverage as well.

A further £10,000 could go into the pot for the last day visit to Aston Villa – when all the matches kick-off at noon on Sunday May 7 – depending on the state of play in the promotion race.

Four of Albion’s remaining eight games have now been moved for Sky, including a hat-trick of Friday dates away to QPR on April 7 (7.45pm), Wolves on April 14 (5pm) and Norwich on April 21 (7.45pm).

Visits to the Amex by Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Leeds, QPR, Sheffield Wednesday, Reading, Newcastle and Derby were all live on Sky.

As were Albion’s trips to Newcastle, Bristol City, Birmingham, Huddersfield and Leeds.

Albion and Newcastle have been far more popular than automatic promotion rivals Huddersfield. The current running live TV appearances total for them is nine, the same as Wolves and Norwich.

Reading are the big TV losers. Fifth in the table proper, they are joint 14th in the TV table with four appearances, the same number as next-to-bottom Wigan.

The big gainers are Queens Park Rangers (from 15th to seven) with a tally of ten live games, six of them at Loftus Road, conveniently situated close to Sky’s West London headquarters.

Relegated Aston Villa have also been picked 16 times, but only four times at Villa Park.

The pattern is similar for Leeds. Two-thirds of their 15 appearances have been away from Elland Road.

The TV profits for Championship clubs pale in comparison to the Premier League windfalls.

Last season for example, the last in the cycle of the £5.2 billion deal for domestic and overseas rights, clubs were guaranteed an £8.75 million lump sum for ten or fewer live matches.

This does not take account of the equal TV rights share and prize money. Villa raked in more than £66 million for finishing bottom.

The Premier League TV package for this season and the next two has soared to around £8 billion.

Albion have laid on free coach travel to Norwich for 1,000 fans, along with a food and drinks voucher for all supporters making the journey to Carrow Road, as a thank you for the away following throughout the season and in recognition of the difficulties caused by fixtures disrupted for TV.

The Argus:

Chief executive Paul Barber, pictured, said: “The Friday night at Norwich is a tough one. It’s a massive game. We would have preferred it to be Saturday at three o’clock, because that would give most Albion fans the chance to get there.

“We wanted to say thank you for our away support and we want to get as many fans there as we can.

“Our preparations are affected as well. We have hotels booked for the team. We’ve got to change it, sometimes at a cost, travel for the team the same. The TV fees for the away games are sometimes wiped out by the costs we incur for the change.

“In the Premier League we would have to accept different kinds of kick-off times and changes. There have been a lot of different challenges for us this season, rail strikes and weather-related issues, that all in all have created probably more disruption than we’ve ever seen, but it’s been very good preparation for perhaps where we want to get to and what that might be like.”

Albion would, in fact, have more Saturday 3pm kick-offs in the Premier League than in the Championship. That will suit some supporters, not others.

Barber said: “Sky have been around for 25 years. Kick-off times have been changed throughout that time. Before Sky, ITV started changing kick-off times for live TV. At the root of these changes is UEFA’s article 48, which prevents live football being shown in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland between quarter-to-three and quarter-to-five on a Saturday.

“That is because all the home associations have agreed collectively to protect the grass roots of the game – the people that play, officiate, spectate at a lower level shouldn’t have their enjoyment interrupted by a huge Premier League game being shown at three o’clock on a Saturday.

“So the irony is, where as fans think Sky are ruining the traditions of football, they are actually complying with a regulation that protects the traditions of football.”