Greyhound Racing on Sky Sports Racing: Coverage, Packages, and Red Button

Sky Sports Racing is the most comprehensive television home for greyhound racing in the UK. Since Premier Greyhound Racing signed its broadcast partnership in January 2024, the channel has carried daily greyhound coverage alongside its horse-racing schedule, plus a dedicated Red Button channel that runs additional meetings simultaneously. The reach is substantial: approximately 14 million households across Sky and Virgin Media platforms can access it.

For anyone wondering whether greyhound racing on Sky Sports Racing is worth the investment, the answer hinges on how much you want to watch. If your interest is limited to catching the occasional Saturday evening meeting, free alternatives like RPGTV or a bookmaker stream will serve you well enough. If you want to follow Premier Greyhound Racing fixtures, major competitions, and the broadest television schedule available — with professional production, expert commentary, and HD picture quality — Sky Sports Racing is the platform that delivers it.

This guide explains exactly what greyhound content the channel carries, how to access it on every major UK platform, and how the Red Button channel works as an extension of the main schedule.

What Greyhound Racing Sky Sports Racing Actually Shows

Sky Sports Racing’s greyhound coverage falls into three categories: Premier Greyhound Racing fixtures, BAGS meetings selected for broadcast, and major events from the national calendar.

Premier Greyhound Racing — the umbrella body that coordinates the sport’s top-tier fixtures — supplies the headline content. PGR meetings from tracks across the country are broadcast live, with studio presentation, expert analysis, and on-course commentary. These are the evening meetings that attract the largest crowds and the best fields: open-race events with higher grades, bigger prizes, and the kind of competitive depth that separates them from standard BAGS cards. Since the 2024 deal, PGR content has had a guaranteed daily slot on Sky Sports Racing, which means greyhounds feature on the channel every day of the week.

BAGS fixtures — the daytime racing that feeds the bookmaker market — also appear on Sky Sports Racing, though not all of them. The channel selects a number of afternoon meetings for broadcast, typically from tracks with strong fields or particular interest. The rest are available through SIS feeds on bookmaker platforms. For BAGS-only viewers, Sky Sports Racing adds a layer of production quality — pre-race analysis, slow-motion replays, form discussion — that SIS feeds do not provide.

Major events receive extended coverage. The English Greyhound Derby at Towcester, the St Leger, the Oaks, the All England Cup, and other headline competitions are broadcast live with dedicated build-up programming, interviews, and post-race analysis. These are the occasions when greyhound racing on Sky Sports Racing feels closest to the treatment the channel gives to major horse-racing festivals — a proper broadcast event rather than a background feed.

How to Access: Sky, Virgin Media, and NOW TV

Sky Sports Racing is available through three main routes in the UK: a Sky TV subscription, a Virgin Media package, or a NOW TV Sports pass. Each has different pricing, different channel numbers, and slightly different feature sets.

Sky TV

Sky Sports Racing is channel 415 on Sky Q and Sky Glass. It is included in the full Sky Sports package but not in the basic Sky Entertainment subscription. If you already have Sky Sports for football, cricket, or horse racing, greyhound coverage is bundled in at no additional cost. If you do not have Sky Sports, the add-on pricing varies depending on your base package — expect to pay a monthly premium that reflects the full Sky Sports suite, not greyhound racing alone. The picture quality is HD, and recordings can be set through the Sky Q planner.

Virgin Media

On Virgin Media, Sky Sports Racing sits on channel 519. Access requires a Virgin TV package that includes the Sky Sports channels, either as a standard inclusion in higher-tier bundles or as a paid add-on. The pricing is comparable to Sky’s own packages. The Virgin Media experience mirrors the Sky one: HD broadcast, full EPG listings, and the ability to record via the Virgin V6 or Stream box. For households that are already on Virgin Media with a sports package, greyhound racing on Sky Sports Racing is available immediately without any additional subscription.

NOW TV

NOW TV (now branded as NOW) offers a Sports Membership that includes access to all Sky Sports channels, including Sky Sports Racing, via streaming. This is the most flexible option: no contract, cancel any time, and accessible on smart TVs, phones, tablets, laptops, and streaming devices. The monthly cost is lower than a full Sky or Virgin sports package, making it the most cost-effective route if greyhounds and horse racing are your primary interests. The trade-off is that NOW TV typically streams at a lower resolution than a full Sky or Virgin subscription — 720p rather than full HD — and the interface is less polished than Sky Q’s dedicated EPG.

A NOW TV Sports Day Pass is also available for a lower one-off price, which is useful if you only want to watch a single major event — the Derby final, for instance — without committing to a monthly subscription.

The Red Button: Dedicated Greyhound Racing Channel

The Red Button channel is one of the more underused features of greyhound racing on Sky Sports Racing. Launched as part of the 2024 PGR broadcast deal, it provides a dedicated secondary channel for greyhound content, accessible by pressing the red button on your Sky or Virgin remote during Sky Sports Racing broadcasts.

The Red Button channel typically carries meetings that run simultaneously with the main-channel broadcast. When Sky Sports Racing’s primary feed is showing a horse-racing meeting or a greyhound fixture from one track, the Red Button picks up a second greyhound meeting from another track. This effectively doubles the greyhound output available at any given time. The production is simpler than the main channel — camera feeds with commentary but without the studio analysis — but the racing itself is the same quality.

To access it on Sky Q or Sky Glass, tune to Sky Sports Racing (channel 415), and when the Red Button prompt appears on screen, press the red button on your remote. The secondary feed opens in the same window. On Virgin Media, the process is similar via the red-button function on the Virgin remote during Sky Sports Racing broadcasts. NOW TV does not currently support the Red Button feature, which is one limitation for subscribers using that route.

The Red Button is particularly valuable during busy periods when multiple tracks are running evening meetings simultaneously. Rather than choosing between, say, a PGR fixture at Nottingham and an open-race meeting at Romford, you can watch both — one on the main channel and one on the Red Button. For regular viewers who follow multiple tracks, this makes Sky Sports Racing considerably more valuable than any single-meeting stream from a bookmaker app.

Is Sky Sports Racing Worth It for Greyhound Fans?

Greyhound racing on Sky Sports Racing delivers the broadest, highest-quality television coverage of the sport available in the UK. The PGR partnership guarantees daily content. The Red Button doubles the available meetings. HD production, expert commentary, and a dedicated slot in the schedule give the sport a visibility it has not had on television for years.

Whether it is worth the cost depends on your viewing habits. If you watch greyhounds daily or follow the major events closely, Sky Sports Racing — whether through a full Sky subscription or a more affordable NOW TV pass — is the best option available. If you are a casual viewer who catches the odd evening card, the free and low-cost alternatives may be enough. Either way, the greyhound content is there, and since 2024, there has been more of it than at any point in the sport’s broadcast history.