If you have a Virgin Media set top box nestled under your TV, the firm is upgrading it for you for free by giving you access to the Premier Sports Rugby channel at no extra cost.

Premier Sports Rugby was previously only available to Virgin Media TV subscribers who paid extra for a Premier Sports subscription. Premier Sports is a separate platform that shows competitions across a variety of sports, including football with La Liga, the Eredivisie and the Coppa Italia, hockey with the NHL, and several rugby championships.

Now, many of those rugby matches are coming to all Virgin Media subscribers at no extra cost as the firm adds Premier Sports Rugby to set top boxes on channel 553.

This gives you access to the Investec Champions Cup, United Rugby Championship (URC), EPCR Challenge Cup, Top14 (France), Major League Rugby and Japan Rugby League One, with even more national and regional rugby available besides.

“We’re offering every Virgin TV customer even more value with access to Premier Sports Rugby at no extra cost,” said David Bouchier, Chief TV and Entertainment Officer at Virgin Media O2.

“As the only Pay TV operator to provide this, we are demonstrating our commitment to give our customers the very best access to the content they love, and to further enhance our sports offering with coverage of the world’s biggest club competitions at their fingertips.”

Virgin Media is starting 2026 in the same way it spent 2025, adding channels and streaming platforms to its subscribers services at no extra cost. As TV habits continue to evolve and morph in the digital era, Virgin is locked in a British battle with rival paid providers such as Sky and EE, not to mention free-to-air on demand services from Freeview, its digital sibling Freely, and incumbent broadcasters BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

Virgin is clearly keen to keep its paying subscribers happy by being seen to be adding more content and perks to their packages.

That said, prices are on the rise. If you took out a new contract with Virgin on or after October 2, 2025, your monthly bill will increase each April by £4. This follows new rules enforced by regulator Ofcom that means service providers must state exact amounts by which contracts go up in price each yea.

If you took out a contract before then your annual price hike is still determined by inflation.

Either way, when TV bills increase each year, Virgin – and its rivals – are being seen to add new services for consumers to convince them to stick around.