EFL chief executive Trevor Birch says expanding broadcast coverage can help “generate greater interest” – but admits it will take time.

The first-ever ‘Innovation Game’ took place over the weekend during Wycombe’s win against Portsmouth, including additional features such as on-pitch audio, dressing-room footage and other behind the scenes access such as interviews.

There has been lots of talk in recent months about the future of EFL broadcasting, with reports suggesting the 3pm Saturday blackout rule could even be scrapped from the 2024/25 season and games shown on platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

Birch felt the ‘Innovation Game’ was successful and says it offered “a better perspective of what happens on a matchday”.

However, he admits there will probably not be many similar experiments until 2024 due to the added costs.

“It added a bit more of an interest to the whole day and gave people a better perspective of what happens on a matchday,” said Birch.

“Particularly it was things like the little cameo with the referees, seeing the managers before the game, the cameras in the dressing room, and then the on-pitch interviews. I just thought it brought it alive.

“Even though it wasn’t comprehensive in terms of what you might be able to do, it certainly showed the potential of how telling a bit of a story around the game, around the club, can certainly enhance the viewing of the game.

“We have seen from many of these Netflix series that if you put a narrative around the club, it definitely generates greater interest. It is an additive to the experience of attending games.

“We were experimenting. We are obviously out there at the moment with our Request For Proposal and basically saying, ‘Look, what would you do to make life interesting for us going forward?

“Under the current contract, we probably can’t do too much more than that because it does actually take time, effort and cost to put something on like that.

“I suspect there won’t be too many more (before the end of 2023-24), but it was an example of what you could do with a game if you were to apply a little bit more impetus to it.”