The Secrets of Sports Direct (C4, 8pm)

IT'S hardly a secret that Newcastle United fans want more money spent on a team which is hovering far too close to the relegation zone and appears to be relying on three others clubs losing more games than them to ensure another premiership season at St James's Park.

The man with his fingers on the purse-strings is Newcastle owner and Sports Direct's billionaire boss Mike Ashley who seems to think that running a football club is somewhat akin to flogging polyester replica shirts to cost-conscious clients. Ashley's pinch-penny approach has alienated thousands of Magpies followers, recently provoked a boycott by season ticket holders and left the soccer neutrals struggling to see why any successful businessman would willingly inflict such poor performances on paying customers.

Channel 4 Despatches reporter Harry Wallop goes undercover tonight to have a look inside the high street giant that Ashley floated on the stock exchange in 2007 and earned a fortune of around £1.5bn. When other sportswear companies buckled under the recession that followed, Sports Direct continued to prosper.

Wallop is keen to discover how the budget retailer manages to drum up such large profits. Those who are opposed to the man who paid £134m to own Newcastle United outright will point to recent criticism of Ashley by MPs for his "reprehensible" business methods with the chain of stores having a reputation for using zero-hours contracts and little-as-possible contributions to employees' pensions.

Hopefully, Wallop can at least answer how Ashley manages to ship in his dirt-cheap tracksuits and trainers and highlight the impact of this kind of trading on the lives of overseas workers.

At the football club legend has it that Ashley has installed sensors that automatically switch off the office lights and sunk a well at the club's training ground to save on utility bills.

Away from football, legend has it that Ashley is a courteous and loyal friend who is so obsessed with gambles that he once lost a disputed £200,000 legal bill by playing a game of spoof against his investment banker.

Perhaps the mysterious man with Tyneside's football heritage in his grasp can conjure up an avuncular side over the next five games, which will finally gladden the hearts of those who are sick to death of hearing "well there's always next season".

Who Will Win the Election? – Panorama (BBC1, 8.30pm)

US statistician Nate Silver shot to fame by correctly predicting the outcome of the past two presidential elections, state by state. Now he arrives in the UK, where reporter Richard Bacon takes him on a road trip around the country, meeting voters of all political persuasions and backgrounds, from the rolling hills of Devon to the pier at Skegness, Lincolnshire. With ten days before polling day in one of the most uncertain British elections in decades, it will be fascinating to see if Silver can correctly forecast which way it will go.

GOTHAM (Channel 5, 9pm)

LAST year Gotham, about the early days of the boy who would become Batman, launched amid a blaze of publicity with much of the action centred on young Jim Gordon, the long-suffering cop who would eventually become the crimefighter's ally.

Here Gordon (Ben McKenzie) investigates Loeb's past after the sudden release of Arnold Flass.

He has to ask Cobblepot (Robin Lord Miller) for a favour to find out more about the suspicious death of the commissioner's wife.

Following his assault, Alfred (Sean Pertwee) recovers in hospital, but is evasive when questioned by detectives about the identity of his attacker.

Meanwhile, Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) earns a promotion after impressing the founder of the institution where she is being held.

Director David Ayer – the man behind hit films End of Watch and Fury – is currently hard at work with Jared Leto (The Joker), Will Smith and an all-star cast in Suicide Squad. This blockbuster aims to have fans flocking to the cinema next year.

Viv Hardwick