SM
Bigfooty Legend
Two major factors:
1. They usually target a team that looks very good, and with the right amount of touching up, will be a Premier League side (Such as a losing playoff side)
2. They think they can take the Championship by storm. They're successful in business, so why can't they be successful here? (A bit of business pride) After all, you've got gold at the end of the rainbow. Just blitz the league and claim the gold! Simple!
From this current crop, if Brentford and Ipswich don't get promoted, they would be attractive targets.
When the Thais bought us out, we just lost a playoff semi to Cardiff (in a situation I don't care to remember). They originally thought they should buy their way out. So what did they do? Get Sven in and spend a crapload on individual players on huge pay packets (There were even talks about Beckham doing a loan spell with us). Naturally, it didn't work. We went backwards a bit, the players were overpaid and lazy. So what did they do? They learned from their mistake and rehired the guy that actually installed a culture and a clear direction into the club in his time here, your 'most favourite' manager of all time, Nigel Pearson.
I think Cardiff were in a similar boat. After Tan bought them, they were always up there. I think they did spend a fair bit of coin, but aside from off-field issues, there was a winning culture there amongst the playing group.
The promoted sides are not the ones that spend the most, they're the ones that build a culture, a play style, and then using their business know-how, exercise their power when they see fit. Whatever is spent in the Championship is going to reimbursed, and there's always that business sense of pride in knowing that you promoted the team to the Premier League. It looks more impressive then being an also-ran in the PL.
When I saw Fulham spent 11m on McCormack, I knew they were going to struggle. The Premier League and Championship are very different animals. Owners that think they can get in there and get rich quick have another thing coming, you need to put in some real effort to get promotion. That's the difference between those who are hasty, pumping their coin in, expecting instant success, and growing something that might actually benefit the Premier League in being respectable opposition.
That separates the Thais from the Fawads and the Raos. It looks good and very tempting, but only those that are prepared to work for it, will be rewarded with promotion. Whether they can stay up is another question.
Your two points are contradictory though. You suggested earlier that people will buy Championship clubs as they see a huge return on investment upon promotion, but now suggest that people expecting to get a huge return are in for a rude shock. If you were right, then there would have been a buyer for Toon, as Ashley had them on the market, but there wasn't. There are three parties interested in buying Hull, and only one isn't contingent on being a PL side.