It was reportedly recently by WrestleVotes that the 2027 Royal Rumble could be the last, at least for now, in the one night format. The Premium Live Event staple may be expanding to two nights in 2028, joining WrestleMania and Summerslam on the full-weekend slate as WWE internally ‘seriously considers’ the idea. While WrestleMania and Summerslam were successful in transitioning into the multi-night format, fan debate and behind the scene discussions have shown that opinions are generally more divisive. However, there are fascinating pros and cons to the expansion of the first PLE of WrestleMania season.

Pros

Spotlight for the Mens and Womens Rumble Matches:

Asuka winning the first women’s Royal Rumble. Photo credit: WWE.

Each night can feature one Royal Rumble match, giving the women equal closing billing rather than opening the show. The women have not closed the show since Asuka won the inaugural match in 2018.. It would be heavily debated if the women close the weekend, but at minimum they’d have the opportunity to close their respective event.

In a world where WWE continues to promote gender equality, gender equity hasn’t exactly been found amongst their PLE priorities, particularly elevated the women into the main event slots beyond particuar ‘first time’ headlines, though the two-night WrestleMania’s have offered the opportunity for the women to close the show when booked well enough to do so, most notably when Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair made history on Night One of WrestleMania 37 in Tampa. The Rumble being two nights would give the women the same opportunity that WrestleMania moving to two nights has given them.

The Rock defeated Mankid at Royal Rumble 1999 in a brutal I Quit match. Photo credit: WWE.

Relief from Fan Fatigue: The traditional one night Rumble card plus two hour-long over-the-top-rope matches usually leads to at least a four-hour runtime. At times, especially with two matches that are designed to be filled with surprises, crowds can get very exhausting, hindering the flow of the show. With two shorter cards audience burnout may be able to be prevented.

Bray Wyatt and Daniel Bryan had an excellent undercard match at Royal Rumble 2014. Photo Credit: WWE.

More Undercard Breathing Room: The title defenses in the midcard and the hot non-Rumble storyline feuds have an opportunity to shine instead of being rushed for an absurd amount of time. In recent years, WWE has been putting marquee matches on the go-home show instead of the event card to expand the amount of time they have for the events with matches that are longer. This would give more wrestlers chances on the major shows.

The Million Dollar Man at the ‘90 Royal Rumble Photo credit: WWE.

Increased Revenue: Recent WrestleMania events have given the blueprint to a revenue increase under Endeavor. The TKO Group has used this as an opportunity to bring in people on two tickets instead of one, and have also used the opportunity to bring more individual people into the venue at some point of the weekend. That increases the demand which theoretically should correlate to how much a city bids for the event, but it also gives more opportunities for merchandise sales, and guarantees a significant increase in concessions. This also fosters an environment where they are giving two separate events to their streaming partners, ESPN+ in the United States and Netflix in other territories. The more events they fill, the more ad-space they can run on these events, and potentially could put them in a better situation, should the events perform well enough to justify it, to re-negotiate when the deals are up for renewal.

Cons

Loss of Traditional Identity: The Royal Rumble always had an unusual aura that stands out from all the PLE’s from WWE, including WrestleMania. The chaos of the men’s and women’s fields unfold back-to-back, setting the immediate tone for WrestleMania season. With that identity being stripped because WrestleMania season no longer has a singular night that immediately sets a tone for the next few months of television being as unpredictable as can be. If the Royal Rumble gmimick is done on multiple nights, it creates an environment that may potentially normalize the event through the lalck of exclusivity, ultimately hurting one of the greatest WrestleMania traditions in the process.

An example of match dilution would be X-Pac defending the European Championship against Gangrel at the 1999 event. Photo credit: WWE.

Card and Match Dilution: Extending the event can force WWE to unfortunately book matches that would be considered filler or elevate feuds designed for weekly television onto a major PLE stage just to pad out the runtime for a second night.

Weakened Appeal for Night Two: Since the Men’s and Women’s Rumbles will probably be split across different nights, there is a possibility that the remainder of the night featuring the women's match might struggle relative to the men's ticket demand or drawing power as the women still clamor for equity amongst the booking, which could hurt the appeal in the eyes of the audience who aren’t as invested in their storylines.

With WrestleMania and SummerSlam already occupying multiple nights, expanding the remaining ‘Big Four’ events risks overexposure while potentially diminishing the special feel of two-night cards. It’s up to WWE and TKO to execute the plan successfully for the Rumble. If the plan backfires due to negative feedback from the fans, expansion of the two night PLE’s could be in trouble outside of WrestleMania.

Regardless, WWE is eyeing an expansion of the Royal Rumble according to early reports regarding the 2028 event. It is not confirmed, but does fall in line with some of their more recent decisions. DSR and CBC will keep you updated on if the event expands, but for now, those are the positives and negatives of a potential expansion of the Rumble.