JBL believes ESPN could be the driving force behind WWE potentially expanding the Royal Rumble to two nights, with the timing of the 2027 event providing an obvious reason.
Speaking on Something To Wrestle, JBL stressed that he has no inside information about the discussions, but believes ESPN would have a strong interest in WWE filling one of the quietest weekends on the American sporting calendar. “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.”
The 2027 Royal Rumble has been confirmed for Arizona in February. That potentially places the event during the weekend between the NFL conference championship games and the Super Bowl.
JBL believes that gap makes WWE particularly valuable to ESPN. “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.”
He suggested ESPN could view a major WWE event as a way of keeping sports viewers engaged during the break before the Super Bowl. “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.”
WWE’s premium live events moved to ESPN in the United States this year, and SummerSlam has already expanded to a two-night format.
JBL believes the Royal Rumble itself also lends naturally to being split across Saturday and Sunday because of the length and importance of the men’s and women’s matches. “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.”
Rather than putting both Rumble matches on the same card, JBL believes WWE could put one on each night and build additional matches 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 about Arizona and the Super Bowl also prompted JBL to recall what he says was the largest fine he ever received from WWE. JBL attended Super Bowl XLII in Glendale in February 2008, where the New York Giants famously ended the New England Patriots’ hopes of completing an undefeated season.
After the game, high winds caused travel problems and getting JBL to WWE television in West Texas reportedly required a commercial journey costing around $15,000. “The biggest fine I’ve ever gotten from WWE was because of a Super Bowl in Arizona.”
According to JBL, Vince McMahon agreed that WWE would cover half of the expense. “Vince comes up and goes, I want you to pay half. And I said, I’m surprised you’re paying any of it. Thank you.”
That left JBL paying approximately $7,500 himself. He believes McMahon initially misunderstood why he had been in the area, thinking JBL had been attending Super Bowl parties after previously spending time in Las Vegas rather than actually attending the game. “He thought I’d been to a party because I was in Vegas on Saturday night at a UFC fight or something. And then I went down to the Super Bowl, and Vince thought I was at a Super Bowl party.”
JBL also believes the WWE television event he was racing to reach may have been the show where he made an entrance on horseback, an experience he remembers for another reason. “I believe it was Lubbock, and I think that’s when I went out on the horse, and the horse damn near killed me.”
The 2027 Royal Rumble was officially confirmed for Arizona this week as part of TKO’s multi-year partnership with the Arizona Sports & Events Alliance.
While the event has been announced for February, WWE has not announced that Royal Rumble will become a two-night event.
For now, JBL’s ESPN theory is speculation rather than reporting. However, with WWE’s new ESPN relationship, SummerSlam already operating across two nights and the Royal Rumble potentially landing during the NFL’s pre-Super Bowl bye weekend, he believes there is a clear business case for making the change.
