Every Championship game on Tuesday night is live, which is not something you can say about most rounds of second tier football. The Saturday afternoon blackout is what keeps most of the division off screens at weekends, and because it only applies between 2.45pm and 5.15pm, a midweek programme escapes it entirely.

That means all eight fixtures on Tuesday 1 September are being shown, with Stoke City against Norwich City picked out for the main Sky Sports channels and the other seven going out on Sky Sports+.

Championship on TV tonight

Fixture	Kick-off	Channel
Lincoln City v Blackburn Rovers	7.45pm	Sky Sports+
Portsmouth v Derby County	7.45pm	Sky Sports+
Preston North End v Bristol City	7.45pm	Sky Sports+
Sheffield United v Bolton Wanderers	7.45pm	Sky Sports+
Swansea City v Watford	7.45pm	Sky Sports+
West Ham United v Wolves	7.45pm	Sky Sports+
Birmingham City v Southampton	8pm	Sky Sports+
Stoke City v Norwich City	8pm	Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports Football

How to watch and stream the games

Sky Sports+ is the home of almost all of it, and anyone who already pays for Sky Sports has it at no extra cost. You will find it on channel 404 on Sky Glass and Sky Stream, or 412 on Sky Q.

The individual matches sit behind that channel as separate streams rather than on the linear feed, so you pick the game you want either through the red button or from within the Sky Sports app. The app is also where mobile and tablet viewers should be heading, and it handles switching between concurrent games better than the older set-top boxes do.

If you are not a Sky customer, a NOW Sports membership is the route in, and it comes as either a day pass or a rolling monthly one with no contract. That flexibility makes the day option worth considering if you only want one particular game rather than the whole season.

For anyone watching without paying, ITV holds the free-to-air rights and runs the EFL highlights coverage, so every goal from Tuesday night will be available there afterwards.

Worth knowing that the Sky Sports+ games are produced by IMG, the EFL’s production partner, rather than by Sky directly. Championship matches get a minimum of six cameras, which is fewer than a marquee Sky broadcast but well beyond what club streams used to offer.

The pick of Tuesday night

West Ham against Wolves at the London Stadium is the fixture most people will reach for, largely because both clubs came down from the Premier League together and have gone in completely different directions since.

Nuno Espirito Santo is still waiting for a first league win, with two draws and a home defeat to Charlton in front of a record 62,500 crowd. Wolves sit second under Cesar Peixoto with seven points from nine, having scored nine goals in three games to make themselves the division’s top scorers.

The one blemish on that Wolves start is defensive, since they have yet to keep a Championship clean sheet, and West Ham did beat them 4-0 the last time the two met in the top flight a few months ago.

Sky have gone elsewhere for their main channel pick, putting Stoke City against Norwich City on Main Event and Sky Sports Football at 8pm. Stoke arrive off the back of a 4-1 defeat at Wolves, so there is some jeopardy in it for them.

The round continues on Wednesday with Millwall against Wrexham, QPR against Cardiff City and West Brom against Charlton Athletic, all at 7.45pm on Sky Sports+.

Our football section covers the odds and previews across both nights, and the next manager odds page is worth a look given how quickly those markets move once a Championship side goes three or four games without a win.