Ipswich Town’s promotion to the Premier League opens up huge financial opportunities for the club which last played top-flight football 22 years ago, but there are many pitfalls too, according to a leading football finance expert.

As well as being able to tap into the global appeal of the Premier League, and the millions that come from broadcasting rights and sponsorship deals, the club will also face a higher wage bill and a more expensive transfer market.

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire, from the University of Liverpool, has been answering some important questions about Ipswich’s spectacular back-to-back promotions and what it could mean for the club’s fortunes.

• What impact could promotion to the Premier League have on the club and the town?

Kieran Maguire: As far as the town of Ipswich is concerned, it could be quite transformational because all of a sudden Ipswich Town are in a competition which is being broadcast to 197 different countries around the world.

Brighton, which is probably around the same size as Ipswich, were promoted a few years ago. They commissioned an economic impact report which said that last year being in the Premier League was worth around £600 million to the city.

Also there’s the impact from tourism, especially if you’ve got overseas players, or if you are hosting a club like Spurs who have got Son Heung-min, the South Korean captain. South Korean camera crews follow him everywhere, so there is a significant impact that can be made to the local economy, not just the football club itself.

• How important is it to have Ed Sheeran as a shirt sponsor for the club’s merchandising and commercial opportunities?

KM: You’ve only got to see what has happened at Wrexham with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney in turning Wrexham into a global brand. It’s got the TV programme to support it, of course, which is going out on streaming services.

That can be replicated as far as Ipswich’s position in the Premier League is concerned. Ed Sheeran is fantastic in his own profession, but he is also an extremely likeable individual on a personal level and that will help because of his close connections to Ipswich Town FC.

It will allow [chief executive] Mark Ashton and the rest of the club’s commercial team to go out to potential sponsors and commercial partners and say ‘You’re not just buying into the football that’s taking place once or twice a week, you’re buying into the local community and Ed’s part of that. He is globally popular and you can use it as a twin pronged attack in terms of generating higher revenues.’

• What other commercial opportunities will be available to Ipswich Town now they are in the Premier League?

KM: If you’re looking at a front-of-shirt deal in the EFL, for what you might call a mid-tier club, you’re looking at hundreds of thousands of pounds, perhaps maybe half a million if they’re a big club like Leeds United.

You could easily add another zero once you hit the Premier League. The average deals that are going through are probably in the region of £6m or £7m a year, as far as front-of-shirt is concerned.

You’ve then got the boost in terms of the kit manufacturing deal and that clearly has been boosted by the affiliation with Ed Sheeran, so those are significant.

In terms of the other main incomes streams, the TV deal can be very transformational. Ipswich will probably have earned around £8m this year from being in the EFL Championship.

The side that finished bottom of the Premier League 2022/23, which was Southampton, earned around £103m, so that’s to look forward to.

The worst case scenario, if Ipswich don’t manage to stay up, they’ll get two years of parachute payments which are worth a further £75m, should the club return to the Championship straight away.