JBL thinks WWE may not be the driving force behind the idea of turning the Royal Rumble into a two-night event. Instead, the WWE Hall of Famer believes ESPN could be pushing for an entire weekend of Rumble action because the event falls during one of the deadest weekends on the American sports calendar.
Speaking on Something To Wrestle, JBL made it clear that he has no inside information on WWE’s plans, but said the timing makes ESPN the obvious suspect. The Royal Rumble falls in the gap between the NFL conference championship games and the Super Bowl, leaving ESPN with a major weekend to fill.
“I would think it’s both. I don’t have any insight into what they’re doing, but obviously it’s a negotiation of both, and it’s probably ESPN. I’m sure they’re looking for something that weekend.”
JBL pointed directly to the NFL schedule as the reason ESPN would want WWE to give them more programming. With no NFL playoff games taking place during that weekend, he believes a two-night Royal Rumble could give the network something substantial to keep viewers engaged heading into the Super Bowl. JBL believes ESPN could see WWE as the answer to that problem.
“That is one of the most dead weekends in sports. The NFL has tried to figure out a way to figure out what to do that weekend. The Hall of Fame game was never a huge draw, and so they’re trying to figure out a way to do something for that weekend.”
“I feel like that would probably be ESPN saying, we have a really big problem here with this weekend keeping people around leading up to the Super Bowl. People just forget, for lack of a better term, storylines in the Super Bowls and things like that.”
He also doesn’t believe the host city would be the force pushing WWE toward two nights. For JBL, the real money involved comes from television rights, which is why ESPN makes much more sense as the party asking for another night.
“I think probably ESPN, because the rights fees, that’s just a matter of negotiating which town is going to do it on what weekend. I don’t see how that would matter between January and February.”
JBL also sees a wrestling reason for splitting the Royal Rumble across two nights. Both the men’s and women’s Rumble matches can run for more than an hour, and each serves as one of WWE’s biggest storyline launches on the Road to WrestleMania.
“The Rumble takes so long, well over an hour for the one match, and then you have the women’s match as well, so both of them are over an hour. And depending on the year, one’s going to be a bigger draw than the other, but both are big draws, and they’re the culmination of storylines.”
He believes WWE could put one Rumble match on each night and build separate cards around them.
“They start the road to WrestleMania. So they’re big deals, these Royal Rumbles. So yeah, I think it makes perfect sense to separate the Rumbles from one night to the next, and then dress those around with the matches that you want.”
The discussion comes after WWE seriously considered expanding the 2027 Royal Rumble in Phoenix into a two-night Premium Live Event. The current expectation is that the 2027 show remains one night, but there has been significant interest inside WWE in eventually turning the Rumble into another multi-night destination event, potentially beginning in 2028.
WWE has already moved WrestleMania and SummerSlam to two-night formats, and the Royal Rumble now appears to be the next major event under consideration. JBL believes the key difference may be that this time the push isn’t simply about WWE selling another night of tickets—it could be ESPN looking at an empty sports weekend and seeing WWE as the perfect way to fill it.
Do you think ESPN is pushing WWE to turn the Royal Rumble into a two-night event, or should WWE keep the Rumble as a one-night tradition? Let us know what you think and leave your feedback in the comments.
