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As fans headed to the Toughsheet Community Stadium, the main grumble was that Northern Rail had not thought to put on a longer train. There were only four coaches to cram Bolton Wanderers and Preston North End fans attempting to make their opening match of the Championship season. The transport incompetence was a firm reminder that club football is back. It was the first time the two teams had played each other since 2019; a Lancashire derby first played in 1885. It also marked the end of Bolton’s exile from the Championship, returning to the second division of English football courtesy of a play-off final win at Wembley. There had been concerns heading into the season about the lack of spending Bolton had done to upgrade their squad from League One. Prior to kick-off, the betting odds marked them out as second favourites to go down. Opta more optimistically had them as fifth favourites. Not a single player in the starting XI had ever scored in the Championship, although that was remedied within 14 minutes when Sam Dalby pounced on a shot spilled by Preston goalkeeper Daniel Iversen. Thierry Gale joined the club 11 minutes later, finishing off a blistering counter-attack. Despite Preston pulling a goal back in the 86th minute, Bolton held on for their first Championship win since March 2019. Bolton’s summer expenditure has undeniably been frugal. Luca Stephenson joining for £700,000 from Liverpool along with Lewis Brunt coming from Wrexham for £500,000 being the key cash-splashes. Contrast that with Preston, who had spent a club-record fee of £6m to secure the services of former loanee Alfie Devine on a permanent basis. The allure of spending significantly in the Championship might be greater than in any other league in football. Average losses in the division last season were £21.6m. Owners burn money in an attempt to reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – Premier League football. The temptation has only increased this year where, for the first time, an eighth-placed finish will secure a play-off berth. Bolton have hardly been frugal in getting to this point. Their most recent accounts for the 2024/25 season showed a loss of £13.9m. Only Charlton and Wrexham made larger losses that year, both of whom were promoted to the Championship at the end of that season. Notably, they both stayed up last season too. Yet Bolton’s spending was the kind that made gaining promotion crucial, as the club’s wage bill is 98.8% of their turnover. This club knows better than most the risks when the financial scales tip against you. In 2019, they went into administration and players had not been paid for almost half a year. At the time, the training ground did not have hot water for showers. There was a suspended points deduction for being unable to fulfil fixtures. Since taking over, Football Ventures have put more than £60m into the club but speaking when the results were released, chief executive David Ray told The Bolton News that they did not want to be “sustaining losses at that scale indefinitely”. The Championship has brought in new squad-cost rules this season to try to protect against the financial risks clubs are taking. These are now season-specific rules which tie squad spending to a club’s revenue, with the figure set at 85% plus an additional allowance for equity top-ups from owners, capped at £33m over three years. The hope is that this framework allows for better real-time monitoring throughout the season, as opposed to the previous profit and sustainability rules, which often led to punishments long after the fact. Newsletters Choose the newsletters you want to receive View more For information about how The Observer protects your data, read our Privacy Policy Yet in being required to comply with these rules, clubs can end up going to great lengths to boost revenue. Bolton are unusual in the Championship for not being sponsored by a betting company. Instead, their shirts bear the logo of Victorian Plumbing, who have their headquarters in Leyland, around 15 miles from the ground. The ground is sponsored by Toughsheet, a local building products supplier. Increased attendances, such as their post-Premier League record of 26,262 on Saturday, will help boost the coffers too. Premier League clubs have collectively chosen not to have betting companies as front-of-shirt sponsors, so these deals are looking even more lucrative lower down the divisions. Yet relying on oblique companies with odd financial products can come with significant risk, as Burnley have found out. The club ditched their front-of-shirt sponsor Finotive One, a self-described “trading ecosystem”, on the same day the Championship season began, for unclear reasons. The attempt to find a sustainable balance between spending and revenue is a tightrope that is only getting more difficult for clubs to walk. The risks of getting it wrong can be seen throughout the football pyramid, not least in a game kicking off at the same time as Bolton’s. The 2015/16 Premier League winners Leicester City had to satisfy themselves with a point in their first match in League. One since 2009, as they were pegged back by Notts County, themselves just promoted from League Two. When teams financially overextend themselves, the fall can be swift enough to question whether the glimpse of success was worth it. For most ownerships in the Championship though, the risk is one they will keep taking. Photograph by Matt McNulty/Getty Images