Blackpool and West Ham Battle for Promotion to Premier League LONDON - On Saturday, in front of 90,000 people crowded into a cathedral of the sport, one of the richest single games in any sport anywhere will take place. It is a soccer match that will feature two passionately supported clubs steeped in tradition. And for the victor the reward will be huge: perhaps $150 million, or more. The loser, meanwhile, will get nothing but heartbreak - and that day's gate receipts. But this is not a description of the UEFA Champions League final, regarded as the pinnacle of international club soccer and also taking place Saturday, in Munich's Allianz Arena. The winner of that match, pitting Chelsea against Bayern Munich, will be saluted around the world but will receive a mere $11.44 million for finishing on top. No, the game with a far larger financial payoff will occur here, at Wembley Stadium, and will match two clubs - West Ham United and Blackpool F.C. - that now reside in the modest second tier of English soccer, one step below the Premier League. Considering their current status, a match between these two teams would normally be of little importance to anyone other than their two sets of supporters. But much is actually at stake in this game, with the winner being promoted back into the Premier League, where riches abound. "Nothing, not a horse race, a boxing purse, any basketball match, any N.F.L. game, baseball ... nothing comes remotely close to the golden ticket you get for winning" Saturday's game, said the journalist Nick Harris, who founded the sports business blog Sporting Intelligence. The differential between winning and losing is huge. The figures are, indeed, vast. In the just-concluded Premier League season, Wolverhampton, the team that finished 20th and last, still received more than $60 million for its meager efforts. There was the $51.6 million payment that represented Wolverhampton's equal share of domestic and international television rights for Premier League games. There was the $1.2 million that represented consolation money for finishing last (the reward grows the higher you finish in the league) and the $767,000 that was paid out for each televised match it appeared in over the season, with 10 matches guaranteed. And there is more, Harris said. A club promoted to the Premier League also sees about $19 million in extra benefits from the likes of increased ticket sales. On top of that, there is also a mandatory four-year "parachute payment" designed to soften the shock for teams, like Wolverhampton, that plummet out of the Premier League into the far less lucrative second tier. That cushion is set at $75.9 million, although a club would not get all that money if it climbed back up to the Premier League before its four years in exile were up. So even if West Ham United or Blackpool lost every Premier League game next season and went back to the second level, it would come away with an enormous amount of money. And the prize could be even bigger. This summer, the Premier League will negotiate the domestic and international TV rights for its games for a period running from 2013 to 2016, and the value is expected to increase significantly. "During the last cycle, the international rights doubled in value," Harris said, to about $2.28 billion. Although he said he doubted the same would happen this summer, more money will undoubtedly be in the offing. "There are markets that are so far off being fully matured," Harris said of the potential for TV rights to grow. Look at America. America is switching on to football" - meaning soccer - "and major U.S. sporting tycoons are investing in the Premier League." Of course, the game at Wembley on Saturday is about more than money. At the heart of it is the system of relegation, in which the bottom three teams in the Premier League each year are demoted, making room for the top three teams in the second tier to move up. Reading and Southampton have already been promoted to the Premier League for next season by finishing first and second in the second tier. West Ham and Blackpool were part of the second-tier teams that finished third through sixth and then squared off in a playoff for the third open spot in the Premier League.